Chapter XLVI: A domestic picture is given, an interior, with the (1)

characters thus disposed:—

“One evening, when Kate was at home, and, as usual, abstracted over a book in a corner; when the Berties were in full possession, one bending over Ombra at the piano, one talking earnestly to her mother, Francesca suddenly threw the door open, with a vehemence quite unusual to her, and without a word of warning—without even the announcement of his name to put them on their guard—Mr. Courtenay walked into the room.”

Thus ends Chapter XLV., and thus opens Chapter XLVI.:—

“The scene which Mr. Courtenay saw when he walked in suddenly to Mrs. Anderson’s drawing-room, was one so different in every way from what he had expected that he was for the first moment as much taken aback as any of the company. * * * The drawing-room, which looked out on the Lung’ Arno, was not small, but it was rather low—not much more than an _entresol_. There was a bright wood-fire on the hearth, and near it, with a couple of candles on a small table by her side, sat Kate, distinctly isolated from the rest, and working diligently, scarcely raising her eyes from her needle-work. The centre-table was drawn a little aside, for Ombra had found it too warm in front of the fire; and about this the other four were grouped—Mrs. Anderson, working too, was talking to one of the young men; the other was holding silk, which Ombra was winding; a thorough English domestic party—such a family group as should have gladdened virtuous eyes to see. Mr. Courtenay looked at it with indescribable surprise.”

MISTAKES OF MISAPPREHENSION.

Soon after Louis XIV. appointed Bossuet, Bishop of Meaux, he inquired how the citizens liked their new Bishop, to which they answered, doubtfully: “Pretty well.” “But,” asked his Majesty, “what fault do you find with him?” “To say the truth,” they replied, “we should have preferred a Bishop who had finished his education; for, whenever we wait upon him, we are told that he is at his studies.”

There lived in the west of England, a few years since, an enthusiastic geologist, who was presiding judge of the Quarter Sessions. A farmer, who had seen him presiding on the bench, overtook him shortly afterwards, while seated by the roadside on a heap of stones, which he was busily breaking in search of fossils. The farmer reined up his horse, gazed at him for a minute, shook his head in commiseration of the mutability of human things, then exclaimed, in mingled tones of pity and surprise: “What, your Honor! be you come to this a’ ready?”

Cottle, in his _Life of Coleridge_, relates an essay at grooming on the part of that poet and Wordsworth. The servants being absent, the poets had attempted to stable their horse, and were almost successful. With the collar, however, a difficulty arose. After Wordsworth had relinquished as impracticable the effort to get it over the animal’s head, Coleridge tried his hand, but showed no more grooming skill than his predecessor; for, after twisting the poor horse’s neck almost to strangulation, and to the great danger of his eyes, he gave up the useless task, pronouncing that the horse’s head must have grown (gout or dropsy) since the collar was put on, for he said it was downright impossibility for such a huge _os frontis_ to pass through so narrow a collar! Just at this moment a servant girl came up, and turning the collar upside down, slipped it off without trouble, to the great humility and wonderment of the poets, who were each satisfied afresh that there were heights of knowledge to which they had not attained.

BLUNDERS OF TRANSLATORS.

A most entertaining volume might be made from the amusing and often absurd blunders perpetrated by translators. For instance, Miss Cooper tells us that the person who first rendered her father’s novel, “The Spy,” into the French tongue, among other mistakes, made the following:—Readers of the Revolutionary romance will remember that the residence of the Wharton family was called “The Locusts.” The translator referred to his dictionary, and found the rendering of the word to be _Les Sauterelles_, “The Grasshoppers.” But when he found one of the dragoons represented as tying his horse to one of the locusts on the lawn, it would appear as if he might have been at fault. Nothing daunted, however, but taking it for granted that American grasshoppers must be of gigantic dimensions, he gravely informs his readers that the cavalryman secured his charger by fastening the bridle to one of the grasshoppers before the door, apparently standing there for that purpose.

Much laughter has deservedly been raised at French _littérateurs_ who professed to be “_doctus utriusque linguæ_.” Cibber’s play of “Love’s Last Shift” was translated by a Frenchman who spoke “Inglees” as “_Le Dernière Chemise de l’Amour_;” Congreve’s “Mourning Bride,” by another, as “_L’Epouse du Matin_;” and a French scholar recently included among his catalogue of works on natural history the essay on “Irish Bulls,” by the Edgeworths. Jules Janin, the great critic, in his translation of “Macbeth,” renders “Out, out, brief candle!” as “_Sortez, chandelle_.” And another, who _traduced_ Shakspeare, commits an equally amusing blunder in rendering Northumberland’s famous speech in “Henry IV.” In the passage

“Even such a man, so faint, so spiritless,
So dull, so dead in look, _so woe-begone_.”

the words italicized are rendered, “_ainsi douleur! va-t’en!_”—“so grief, be off with you!” Voltaire did no better with his translations of several of Shakspeare’s plays; in one of which the “myriad-minded” makes a character renounce all claim to a doubtful inheritance, with an avowed resolution to _carve_ for himself a fortune with his sword. Voltaire put it in French, which, retranslated, reads, “What care I for lands? With my sword I will make a fortune cutting meat.”

The late centennial celebration of Shakspeare’s birthday in England called forth numerous publications relating to the works and times of the immortal dramatist. Among them was a new translation of “Hamlet,” by the Chevalier de Chatelain, who also translated Halleck’s “Alnwick Castle,” “Burns,” and “Marco Bozzaris.” Our readers are, of course, familiar with the following lines:—

“How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable
Seem to me all the uses of this world!
Fie on’t! Oh, fie! ’tis an unweeded garden
That grows to seed; things rank, and gross in nature,
Possess it merely.”

The chevalier, less successful with the English than with the modern American poet, thus renders them into French:—

“_Fi donc! fi donc! Ces jours qu’on nous montrons superbes
Sont un vilain jardin rempli de folles herbes,
Qui donnent de l’ivraie, et certes rien de plus
Si ce n’est les engines du cholera-morbus._”

Some of the funniest mistranslations on record have been bequeathed by Victor Hugo. Most readers will remember his rendering of a peajacket as _paletot a la purée de pois_, and of the Frith of Forth as _le cinquième de le quatrième_.

The French translator of one of Sir Walter Scott’s novels, knowing nothing of that familiar name for toasted cheese, “a Welsh rabbit,” rendered it literally by “_un lapin du pays de Galles_,” or a rabbit of Wales, and then informed his readers in a foot-note that the lapins or rabbits of Wales have a very superior flavor, and are very tender, which cause them to be in great request in England and Scotland. A writer in the Neapolitan paper, _Il Giornale della due Sicilie_, was more ingenuous. He was translating from an English paper the account of a man who killed his wife by striking her with a poker; and at the end of his story the honest journalist, with a modesty unusual in his craft, said, “_Non sappiamo per certo se questo pokero Inglese sia uno strumento domestico o bensi chirurgico_”—“We are not quite certain whether this English poker [_pokero_] be a domestic or surgical instrument.”

In the course of the famous Tichborne trial, the claimant, when asked the meaning of _laus Deo semper_, said it meant “the laws of God forever, or permanently.” An answer not less ludicrous was given by a French Sir Roger, who, on being asked to translate _numero Deus impare gaudet_, unhesitatingly replied, “Le numéro deux se réjouit d’être impair.”

Some of the translations of the Italian operas in the librettos, which are sold to the audience, are ludicrous enough. Take, for instance, the lines in _Roberto il diavolo_,—

Egli era, dicessi
Abitatore
Del tristo Imperio.

Which some smart interpreter rendered—

“For they say he was
A citizen of the black emporium.”

Misquotations.

In Mr Collins’ account of Homer’s Iliad, in Blackwood’s _Ancient Classics for English Readers_, occurs the following:—

... “The spirit horsemen who rallied the Roman line in the great fight
with the Latins at Lake Regillus, the shining stars who lighted the
sailors on the stormy Adriatic, and gave their names to the ship in
which St. Paul was cast away.”

If the reader will take the trouble to refer to the _Acts of the Apostles_, xxviii. 11. he will find, that the ship of Alexandria, “whose sign was Castor and Pollux,” was not the vessel in which St. Paul was shipwrecked near Malta, but the ship in which he safely voyaged from the island of “the barbarous people” to Puteoli for Rome.

The misquotations of Sir Walter Scott have frequently attracted attention. One of the most unpardonable occurs in _The Heart of Mid-Lothian_, chapter xlvii.:—

“The least of these considerations always inclined Butler to measures of conciliation, in so far as he could accede to them, without compromising principle; and 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_.”

On turning to the gospel of Matthew, v. 9, we find that the benediction pronounced upon the _peacemakers_ was that “they shall be called the children of God.” It is the meek who are to “inherit the earth,” (ver. 5).

Another of Scott’s blunders occurs in _Ivanhoe_. The date of this story “refers to a period towards the end of the reign of Richard I.” (chap. i.) Richard died in 1199. Nevertheless, Sir Walter makes the disguised Wamba style himself “a poor brother of the Order of St. Francis,” although the Order was not founded until 1210, and, of course, the saintship of the founder had a still later date.

Again in _Waverley_ (chap. xii.) he puts into the mouth of Baron Bradwardine the words “nor would I utterly accede to the objurgation of the _younger Plinius_ in the fourteenth book of his _Historia Naturalis_.” The great Roman naturalist whose thirty-seven books on Natural History were written eighteen centuries ago, was the _Elder_ Pliny.

Alison, in his _History of Europe_, speaks of the Grand Duke Constantine of Russia, the Viceroy of Poland, as the son of the emperor Paul I. and the celebrated empress Catherine. This Catherine was the _mother_ of Paul, and wife of Peter III., Paul’s father. Constantine’s mother, i.e. Paul’s wife, was a princess of Würtemberg.

Another of Archibald’s singular errors is his translation of _droit du timbre_ (stamp duty) into “timber duties.” This is about as sensible as his quoting with approbation from De Tocqueville the false and foolish assertion that the American people are “regardless of historical records or monuments,” and that future historians will be obliged “to write the history of the present generation from the archives of other lands.” Such ignorance of American scholarship and research and of the vigorous vitality of American Historical Societies, is unpardonable.

Disraeli thus refers to a curious blunder in Nagler’s _Künstler-Lexicon_, concerning the artist Cruikshank:—

Some years ago the relative merits of George Cruikshank and his brother were contrasted in an English Review, and George was spoken of as “the real Simon Pure”—the first who had illustrated “Scenes of Life in London.” Unaware of the real significance of a quotation which has become proverbial among us, the German editor begins his memoir of Cruikshank by gravely informing us that he is an English artist “whose real name is Simon Pure!” Turning to the artists under letter P. we accordingly read, “Pure (Simon), the real name of the celebrated caricaturist, George Cruikshank.”

This will remind some of our readers of the index which refers to Mr. Justice Best. A searcher after something or other, running his eye down the index through letter B, arrived at the reference “Best—Mr. Justice—his great mind.” Desiring to be better acquainted with the particulars of this assertion, he turned to the page referred to, and there found, to his entire satisfaction, “Mr. Justice Best said he had a great mind to commit the witness for prevarication.”

In the fourth canto of _Don Juan_, stanza CX., Byron says:

Oh, darkly, deeply, beautifully blue,
As some one somewhere sings about the sky.

Byron was mistaken in thinking his quotation referred to the sky. The line is in Southey’s _Madoc_, canto V., and describes fish. A note intimates that dolphins are meant.

“Though in blue ocean seen,
Blue, darkly, deeply, beautifully blue,
In all its rich variety of shades,
Suffused with glowing gold.”

Fabrications.

THE DESCRIPTION OF THE SAVIOUR’S PERSON.

Chalmers charges upon Huarte (a native of French Navarre) the publication (as genuine and authentic) of the Letter of Lentulus (the Proconsul of Jerusalem) to the Roman Senate, describing the person and manners of our Lord, and for which, of course, he deservedly censures him. A copy of the letter will be found in the chapter of this volume headed I. H. S.

A CLEVER HOAX ON SIR WALTER SCOTT.

The following passage occurs in one of Sir Walter Scott’s letters to Southey, written in September, 1810:—

A witty rogue, the other day, who sent me a letter subscribed
“Detector,” proved me guilty of stealing a passage from one of Vida’s
Latin poems, which I had never seen or heard of; yet there was so
strong a general resemblance as fairly to authorize “Detector’s”
suspicion.

Lockhart remarks thereupon:—

The lines of Vida which “Detector” had enclosed to Scott, as the
obvious original of the address to “Woman,” in _Marmion_, closing
with—

“When pain and anguish wring the brow,
A ministering angel thou!”

end as follows: and it must be owned that if Vida had really written
them, a more extraordinary example of casual coincidence could never
have been pointed out.

“Cum dolor atque supercilio gravis imminet angor,
Fungeris angelico sola ministerio.”

“Detector’s” reference is Vida _ad Eranen_, El. ii. v. 21; but it is
almost needless to add there are no such lines, and no piece bearing
such a title in Vida’s works.

It was afterwards ascertained that the waggish author of this hoax was a Cambridge scholar named Drury.

THE MOON HOAX.

The authorship of the “Moon Hoax,” an elaborate description (which was first printed in the New York _Sun_) of men, animals, &c., purporting to have been discovered in the moon by Sir John Herschel, is now disputed. Until recently it was conceded to R. A. Locke, now dead; but in the _Budget of Paradoxes_, by Professor De Morgan, the authorship is confidently ascribed to M. Nicollet, a French savant, once well known in this country, and employed by the government in the scientific exploration of the West. He died in the government service. Professor De Morgan writes as follows:—“There is no doubt that it (the ‘Moon Hoax’) was produced in the United States by M. Nicollet, an astronomer of Paris, and a fugitive of some kind. About him I have heard two stories. First, that he fled to America with funds not his own, and that this book was a mere device to raise the wind. Secondly, that he was a _protegé_ of Laplace, and of the Polignac party, and also an outspoken man. The moon story was written and sent to France, with the intention of entrapping M. Arago—Nicollet’s especial foe—in the belief of it.” It seems not to have occurred to the sage and critical professor that a man who could steal funds, would have little scruple about stealing a literary production. It is, hence, more than probable that Nicollet translated the article immediately after its appearance in the New York _Sun_, and afterwards sent it to France as his own.

A LITERARY SELL.

A story is told in literary circles in New York of an enthusiastic Carlyle Club of ladies and gentlemen of Cambridge and Boston, who meet periodically to read their chosen prophet and worship at his shrine. One of them, not imbued with sufficient reverence to teach him better, feloniously contrived to have the reader on a certain evening insert something of his own composition into the reading, as though it came from the printed page and Carlyle’s hand. The interpolation was as follows:—“Word-spluttering organisms, in whatever place—not with Plutarchean comparison, apologies, nay rather, without any such apologies—but born into the world to say the thought that is in them—antiphoreal, too, in the main—butchers, bakers, and candlestick-makers; men, women, pedants. Verily, with you, too, it’s now or never.” This paragraph produced great applause among the devotees of Carlyle. The leader of the Club especially, a learned and metaphysical pundit, who is the great American apostle of Carlyle, said nothing Carlyle had ever written was more representative and happy. The actual author of it attempted to ask some questions about it, and elicit explanations. These were not wanting, and, where they failed, the stupidity of the questioner was the substitute presumption, delicately hinted. It reminds us of Dr. Franklin’s incident in his life of Abraham, which he used to read off with great gravity, apparently from an open Bible, though actually from his own memory. This parable is probably the most perfect imitation of Scripture style extant.

MRS. HEMANS’s “FORGERIES.”

A gentleman having requested Mrs. Hemans to furnish him with some authorities from the old English writers for the use of the word “barb,” as applied to a steed, she very shortly supplied him with the following imitations, which she was in the habit of calling her “forgeries.” The mystification succeeded completely, and was not discovered for some time afterwards:—

The warrior donn’d his well-worn garb
And proudly waved his crest;
Be mounted on his jet-black _barb_
And put his lance in rest.
§Percy§, _Reliques_.

Eftsoons the wight withouten more delay
Spurr’d his brown _barb_, and rode full swiftly on his way.
§Spenser.§

Hark! was it not the trumpet’s voice I heard?
The soul of battle is awake within me!
The fate of ages and of empires hangs
On this dread hour. Why am I not in arms?
Bring my good lance, caparison my steed!
Base, idle grooms! are ye in league against me?
Haste with my _barb_, or by the holy saints,
Ye shall not live to saddle him to-morrow.
§Massinger.§

No sooner had the pearl-shedding fingers of the young Aurora
tremulously unlocked the oriental portals of the golden horizon, than
the graceful flower of chivalry, and the bright cynosure of ladies
eyes—he of the dazzling breast-plate and swanlike plume—sprang
impatiently from the couch of slumber, and eagerly mounted the noble
_barb_ presented to him by the Emperor of Aspromontania.

§Sir Philip Sidney§, _Arcadia_.

See’st thou yon chief whose presence seems to rule
The storm of battle? Lo! where’er he moves
Death follows. Carnage sits upon his crest—
Fate on his sword is throned—and his white _barb_,
As a proud courser of Apollo’s chariot,
Seems breathing fire.
§Potter§, _Æschylus_.

Oh! bonnie looked my ain true knight,
His _barb_ so proudly reining;
I watched him till my tearfu’ sight
Grew amaist dim wi’ straining.
_Border Minstrelsy._

Why, he can heel the lavolt and wind a fiery _barb_ as well as any
gallant in Christendom. He’s the very pink and mirror of
accomplishment.

§Shakspeare.§

Fair star of beauty’s heaven! to call thee mine,
All other joy’s I joyously would yield;
My knightly crest, my bounding _barb_ resign
For the poor shepherd’s crook and daisied field!
For courts, or camps, no wish my soul would prove,
So thou would’st live with me and be my love.
§Earl of Surrey§, _Poems_.

For thy dear love my weary soul hath grown Heedless of youthful sports: I seek no more Or joyous dance, or music’s thrilling tone, Or joys that once could charm in minstrel lore, Or knightly tilt where steel-clad champions meet, Borne on impetuous _barbs_ to bleed at beauty’s feet! §Shakspeare§, _Sonnets_.

As a warrior clad
In sable arms, like chaos dull and sad,
But mounted on a _barb_ as white
As the fresh new-born light,—
So the black night too soon
Came riding on the bright and silver moon
Whose radiant heavenly ark
Made all the clouds beyond her influence seem
E’en more than doubly dark,
Mourning all widowed of her glorious beam.
§Cowley.§

SHERIDAN’S GREEK.

In _Anecdotes of Impudence_, we find this curious story:—

Lord Belgrave having clenched a speech in the House of Commons with a long Greek quotation, Sheridan, in reply, admitted the force of the quotation so far as it went; “but” said he, “if the noble Lord had proceeded a little farther, and completed the passage, he would have seen that it applied the other way!” Sheridan then spouted something _ore rotundo_, which had all the ais, ois, kons, and kois that give the world assurance of a Greek quotation: upon which Lord Belgrave very promptly and handsomely complimented the honorable member on his readiness of recollection, and frankly admitted that the continuation of the passage had the tendency ascribed to it by Mr. Sheridan, and that he had overlooked it at the moment when he gave his quotation. On the breaking up of the House, Fox, who piqued himself on having some Greek, went up to Sheridan, and said, “Sheridan, how came you to be so ready with that passage? It certainly is as you state, but I was not aware of it before you quoted it.” It is unnecessary to observe that there was no Greek at all in Sheridan’s impromptu.

BALLAD LITERATURE.

John Hill Burton, in his _Book Hunter_, after speaking of the success with which Surtus imposed upon Sir Walter Scott the spurious ballad of the _Death of Featherstonhaugh_, which has a place in the _Border Minstrelsy_, says:—

Altogether, such affairs create an unpleasant uncertainty about the paternity of that delightful department of literature—our ballad poetry. Where next are we to be disenchanted? Of the way in which ballads have come into existence, there is one sad example within my own knowledge. Some mad young wags, wishing to test the critical powers of an experienced collector, sent him a new-made ballad, which they had been enabled to secure only in a fragmentary form. To the surprise of its fabricator, it was duly printed; but what naturally raised his surprise to astonishment, and revealed to him a secret, was, that it was no longer a fragment, but a complete ballad,—the collector, in the course of his industrious inquiries among the peasantry, having been so fortunate as to recover the missing fragments! It was a case where neither could say anything to the other, though Cato might wonder, _quod non rideret haruspex, haruspicem cum vidisset_. This ballad has been printed in more than one collection, and admired as an instance of the inimitable simplicity of the genuine old versions!

* * * * *

Psalmanazar exceeded in powers of deception any of the great impostors of learning. His island of Formosa was an illusion eminently bold, and maintained with as much felicity as erudition; and great must have been that erudition which could form a pretended language and its grammar, and fertile the genius which could invent the history of an unknown people. The deception was only satisfactorily ascertained by his own penitential confession; he had defied and baffled the most learned.

FRANKLIN’S PARABLE.

Dr. Franklin frequently read for the entertainment of company, apparently from an open Bible, but actually from memory, the following chapter in favor of religious toleration, pretendedly quoted from the Book of Genesis. This story of Abraham and the idolatrous traveler was given by Franklin to Lord Kaimes as a “Jewish Parable on Persecution,” and was published by Kaimes in his _Sketches of the History of Man_. It is traced, not to a Hebrew author, but to a Persian apologue. Bishop Heber, in referring to the charge of plagiarism raised against Franklin, says that while it cannot be proved that he gave it to Lord Kaimes as his own composition, it is “unfortunate for him that his correspondent evidently appears to have regarded it as his composition; that it had been published as such in all the editions of Franklin’s collected works; and that, with all Franklin’s abilities and amiable qualities, there was a degree of quackery in his character which, in this instance as well as that of his professional epitaph on himself, has made the imputation of such a theft more readily received against him, than it would have been against most other men of equal eminence.”

1. And it came to pass after those things, that Abraham sat in the
door of his tent, about the going down of the sun.

2. And behold a man, bowed with age, came from the way of the
wilderness, leaning on a staff.

3. And Abraham arose, and met him, and said unto him, Turn in, I pray
thee, and warm thy feet, and tarry all night, and thou shalt arise
early on the morrow, and go on thy way.

4. But the man said, Nay, for I will abide under this tree.

5. And Abraham pressed him greatly; so he turned, and they went into
the tent; and Abraham baked unleavened bread, and they did eat.

6. And when Abraham saw that the man blessed not God, he said unto
him, Wherefore dost thou not worship the most High God, Creator of
Heaven and Earth?

7. And the man answered and said, I do not worship the God thou
speakest of, neither do I call upon his name; for I have made to
myself a God, which abideth always in mine house, and provideth me
with all things.

8. And Abraham’s zeal was kindled against the man, and he arose and
fell upon him, and drove him forth into the wilderness.

9. And at midnight God called unto Abraham, saying, Abraham, where is
the stranger?

10. And Abraham answered and said, Lord, he would not worship Thee,
neither would he call upon Thy name; therefore have I driven him out
from before my face into the wilderness.

11. And God said, Have I borne with him these hundred and ninety and
eight years, and nourished him and clothed him, notwithstanding his
rebellion against Me; and couldst not thou, that art thyself a sinner,
bear with him one night?

12. And Abraham said, Let not the anger of my Lord wax hot against His
servant: Lo, I haved sinned; forgive me, I pray Thee.

13. And he arose, and went forth into the wilderness, and sought
diligently for the man, and found him:

14. And returned with him to his tent: and when he had entreated him
kindly, he sent him away on the morrow with gifts.

15. And God spake again unto Abraham, saying, For this thy sin shall
thy seed be afflicted four hundred years in a strange land:

16. But for thy repentance will I deliver them; and they shall come
forth with power, and with gladness of heart, and with much substance.

THE SHAKSPEARE FORGERIES.

In 1795–96 William Henry Ireland perpetrated the remarkable Shakspeare Forgeries which gave his name such infamous notoriety. The plays of “Vortigern” and “Henry the Second” were printed in 1799. Several litterateurs of note were deceived by them, and Sheridan produced the former at Drury Lane theatre, with John Kemble to take the leading part. The total failure of the play, conjoined with the attacks of Malone and others, eventually led to a conviction and forced confession of Ireland’s dishonesty. For an authentic account of the Shakspeare Manuscripts see _The Confessions of W. H. Ireland_; Chalmers’ _Apology for the Believers of the Shakspeare Papers_; Malone’s _Inquiry into the Authenticity_, &c.; Wilson’s _Shaksperiana_; _Gentleman’s Magazine_, 1796–97; _Eclectic Magazine_, xvi. 476. One of the original manuscripts of Ireland, that of Henry the Second, has been preserved. The rascal seems to have felt but little penitence for his fraud.

Interrupted Sentences.

A Judge, reprimanding a criminal, called him a scoundrel. The prisoner replied: “Sir, I am not as big a scoundrel as your Honor”—here the culprit stopped, but finally added—“takes me to be.” “Put your words closer together,” said the Judge.

A lady in a dry goods store, while inspecting some cloths, remarked that they were “part cotton.” “Madam,” said the shopman, “these goods are as free from cotton as your breast is”—(the lady frowned) he added—“free from guile.”

A lady was reading aloud in a circle of friends a letter just received. She read, “We are in great trouble. Poor Mary has been confined”—and there she stopped for that was the last word on the sheet, and the next sheet had dropped and fluttered away, and poor Mary, unmarried, was left really in a delicate situation until the missing sheet was found, and the next continued—“to her room for three days, with what, we fear, is suppressed scarlet fever.”

To all letters soliciting his “subscription” to any object Lord Erskine had a regular form of reply, viz.:—“Sir, I feel much honored by your application to me, and beg to subscribe”—here the reader had to turn over the leaf—“myself your very obedient servant.”

Much more satisfactory to the recipient was Lord Eldon’s note to his friend, Dr. Fisher, of the Charter House:—“Dear Fisher—I cannot to day give you the preferment for which you ask. Your sincere friend, Eldon. (_Turn over_)—I gave it to you yesterday.”

At the Virginia Springs a Western girl name Helen was familiarly known among her admirers as Little Hel. At a party given in her native city, a gentleman, somewhat the worse for his supper, approached a very dignified young lady and asked: “Where’s my little sweetheart? You know,—Little Hel?” “Sir?” exclaimed the lady, “you certainly forgot yourself.” “Oh,” said he quickly, “you interrupted me; if you had let me go on I would have said Little Helen.” “I beg your pardon,” answered the lady, “when you said Little Hel, I thought you had reached your final destination.”

The value of an explanation is finely illustrated in the old story of a king who sent to another king, saying, “Send me a blue pig with a black tail, or else——.” The other, in high dudgeon at the presumed insult, replied: “I have not got one, and if I had——.” On this weighty cause they went to war for many years. After a satiety of glories and miseries, they finally bethought them that, as their armies and resources were exhausted, and their kingdoms mutually laid waste, it might be well enough to consult about the preliminaries of peace; but before this could be concluded, a diplomatic explanation was first needed of the insulting language which formed the ground of the quarrel. “What could you mean,” said the second king to the first, “by saying, ‘Send me a blue pig with a black tail, or else——?’” “Why,” said the other, “I meant a blue pig with a black tail, or else some other color. But,” retorted he, “what did you mean by saying, ‘I have not got one, and if I had——?’” “Why, of course, if I had, I should have sent it.” An explanation which was entirely satisfactory, and peace was concluded accordingly.

It is related of Dr. Mansel, that when an undergraduate of Trinity College, Cambridge, he chanced to call at the rooms of a brother Cantab, who was absent, but who had left on his table the opening of a poem, which was in the following lofty strain:—

“The sun’s perpendicular rays
Illumine the depths of the sea,”

Here the flight of the poet, by some accident, stopped short, but Mansel, who never lost an occasion for fun, completed the stanza in the following facetious style:—

“And the fishes beginning to sweat,
Cried, ‘Goodness, how hot we shall be.’”

That not very brilliant joke, “to lie—under a mistake,” is sometimes indulged in by the best writers. Witness the following. Byron says:—

If, after all, there should be some so blind
To their own good this warning to despise,
Led by some tortuosity of mind
Not to believe my verse and their own eyes,
And cry that they the moral cannot find,
I tell him, if a clergyman, he lies;
Should captains the remark, or critics make,
They also lie too—under a mistake.
_Don Juan_, Canto I.

Shelley, in his translation of the _Magico Prodigioso_ of Calderon, makes Clarin say to Moscon:—

You lie—under a mistake—
For this is the most civil sort of lie
That can be given to a man’s face. I now
Say what I think.

And De Quincey, _Milton versus Southey and Landor_, says:—

You are tempted, after walking round a line (of Milton) threescore times, to exclaim at last,—Well, if the Fiend himself should rise up before me at this very moment, in this very study of mine, and say that no screw was loose in that line, then would I reply: “Sir, with due submission, you are——.” “What!” suppose the Fiend suddenly to demand in thunder. “What am I?” “Horribly wrong,” you wish exceedingly to say; but, recollecting that some people are choleric in argument, you confine yourself to the polite answer—“That, with deference to his better education, you conceive him to lie”—that’s a bad word to drop your voice upon in talking with a friend, and you hasten to add—“under a slight, a _very_ slight mistake.”

Mr. Montague Mathew, who sometimes amused the House of Commons, and alarmed the Ministers, with his _brusquerie_, set an ingenious example to those who are at once forbidden to speak, and yet resolved to express their thoughts. There was a debate upon the treatment of Ireland, and Mathew having been called to order for taking unseasonable notice of the enormities attributed to the British Government, spoke to the following effect:—“Oh, very well; I shall say nothing then about the murders—(_Order, order!_)—I shall make no mention of the massacres—(_Hear, hear! Order!_)—Oh, well; I shall sink all allusion to the infamous half-hangings—”(_Order, order! Chair!_)

Lord Chatham once began a speech on West Indian affairs, in the House of Commons, with the words: “Sugar, Mr. Speaker——” and then, observing a smile to prevail in the audience, he paused, looked fiercely around, and with a loud voice, rising in its notes, and swelling into vehement anger, he is said to have pronounced again the word “Sugar!” three times; and having thus quelled the House, and extinguished every appearance of levity or laughter, turned around, and disdainfully asked, “Who will laugh at sugar now?”

Our legislative assemblies, under the most exciting circumstances, convey no notion of the phrenzied rage which sometimes agitates the French. Mirabeau interrupted once at every sentence by an insult, with “slanderer,” “liar,” “assassin,” “rascal,” rattling around him, addressed the most furious of his assailants in the softest tone he could assume, saying, “I pause, gentlemen, till these civilities are exhausted.”

Mr. Marten, M. P., was a great wit. One evening he delivered a furious philippic against Sir Harry Vane, and when he had buried him beneath a load of sarcasm, he said:—“But as for young Sir Harry Vane——” and so sat down. The House was astounded. Several members exclaimed: “What have you to say against young Sir Harry?” Marten at once rose and added: “Why, if young Sir Harry lives to be old, _he_ will be old Sir Harry.”

Echo Verse.

Addison says, in No. 59 of the Spectator, “I find likewise in ancient times the conceit of making an Echo talk sensibly and give rational answers. If this could be excusable in any writer, it would be in Ovid, where he introduces the echo as a nymph, before she was worn away into nothing but a voice. (Met. iii. 379.) The learned Erasmus, though a man of wit and genius, has composed a dialogue upon this silly kind of device, and made use of an echo who seems to have been an extraordinary linguist, for she answers the person she talks with in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, according as she found the syllables which she was to repeat in any of those learned languages. Hudibras, in ridicule of this false kind of wit, has described Bruin bewailing the loss of his bear to a solitary echo, who is of great use to the poet in several distichs, as she does not only repeat after him, but helps out his verse and furnishes him with rhymes.”

Euripides in his Andromeda—a tragedy now lost—had a similar scene, which Aristophanes makes sport with in his Feast of Ceres. In the Greek Anthology (iii. 6) is an epigram of Leonidas, and in Book IV. are some lines by Guaradas, commencing—

α Αχὼ φίλα μοι συγκαταίνεσον τί. β τί;
(Echo! I love: advise me somewhat.—What?)

The French bards in the age of Marot were very fond of this conceit. Disraeli gives an ingenious specimen in his Curiosities of Literature. The lines here transcribed are by Joachim de Bellay:—

Qui est l’auteur de ces maux avenus?—Venus.
Qu’étois-je avant d’entrer en ce passage?—Sage.
Qu’est-ce qu’aimer et se plaindre souvent?—Vent.
Dis-moi quelle est celle pour qui j’endure?—Dure.
Sent-elle bien la douleur qui me point?—Point.

In _The Progresses of Queen Elizabeth_ there is detailed a masque, which was enacted for her Majesty’s pleasure, in which a dialogue was held with Echo “devised, penned, and pronounced by Master Gascoigne, and that upon a very great sudden.”

Here are three of the verses:—

Well, Echo, tell me yet,
How might I come to see
This comely Queen of whom we talk?
Oh, were she now by thee!
By thee.

By me? oh, were that true,
How might I see her face?
How might I know her from the rest,
Or judge her by her grace?
Her grace.

Well, then, if so mine eyes
Be such as they have been,
Methinks I see among them all
This same should be the Queen.
The Queen.

LONDON BEFORE THE RESTORATION.

What want’st thou that thou art in this sad taking?
a king.
What made him hence move his residing?
siding.
Did any here deny him satisfaction?
faction.
Tell me whereon this strength of faction lies?
on lies.
What didst thou do when King left Parliament?
lament.
What terms wouldst give to gain his company?
any.
But thou wouldst serve him with thy best endeavor?
ever.
What wouldst thou do if thou couldst here behold him?
hold him.
But if he comes not, what becomes of London?
undone.

The following song was written by Addison:—

Echo, tell me, while I wander
O’er this fairy plain to prove him,
If my shepherd still grows fonder,
Ought I in return to love him?
_Echo._—Love him, love him.

If he loves, as is the fashion,
Should I churlishly forsake him?
Or, in pity to his passion,
Fondly to my bosom take him?
_Echo._—Take him, take him.

Thy advice, then, I’ll adhere to,
Since in Cupid’s chains I’ve led him,
And with Henry shall not fear to
Marry, if you answer, “Wed him.”
_Echo._—Wed him, wed him.

PASQUINADE.

The following squib, cited by Mr. Motley in his _Dutch Republic_, from a MS. collection of pasquils, shows the prevalent opinion in the Netherlands concerning the parentage of Don John of Austria and the position of Barbara Blomberg:—

—sed at Austriacum nostrum redeamus—eamus
Hunc Cesaris filium esse satis est notum—notum
Multi tamen de ejus patre dubitavere—_vere_
Cujus ergo filium cum dieunt Itali—_Itali_
Verum mater satis est nota in nostra republica—_publica_
Imo hactenus egit in Brabantiâ ter voere—hoere
Crimen est ne frui amplexu unius Cesaris tam generosi—osi
Pluribus ergo usa in vitâ est—ita est
Seu post Cesaris congressum non vere ante—ante
Tace garrula ne tale quippiam loquare—quare?
Nescis quâ pœna afficiendum dixerit Belgium insigne—igne, &c.

THE GOSPEL ECHO.

_Found in a pew in a church in Scotland, written in a female hand._

True faith producing love to God and man,
Say, Echo, is not this the gospel plan?
_Echo._—The gospel plan!

Must I my faith in Jesus constant show,
By doing good to all, both friend and foe?
_Echo._—Both friend and foe!

When men conspire to hate and treat me ill,
Must I return them good, and love them still?
_Echo._—Love them still!

If they my failings causelessly reveal,
Must I their faults as carefully conceal?
_Echo._—As carefully conceal!

But if my name and character they tear,
And cruel malice too, too plain appear;
And, when I sorrow and affliction know,
They smile, and add unto my cup of woe;
Say, Echo, say, in such peculiar case,
Must I continue still to love and bless?
_Echo._—Still love and bless!

Why, Echo, how is this? Thou’rt sure a dove:
Thy voice will leave me nothing else but love!
_Echo._—Nothing else but love!

Amen, with all my heart, then be it so;
And now to practice I’ll directly go.
_Echo._—Directly go!

This path be mine; and, let who will reject,
My gracious God me surely will protect.
_Echo._—Surely will protect!

Henceforth on him I’ll cast my every care,
And friends and foes, embrace them all in prayer.
_Echo._—Embrace them all in prayer.

ECHO AND THE LOVER.

§Lover.§— Echo! mysterious nymph, declare
Of what you’re made and what you are.

§Echo.§— Air!

§Lover.§— Mid airy cliffs and places high,
Sweet Echo! listening, love, you lie—

§Echo.§— You lie!

§Lover.§— Thou dost resuscitate dead sounds—
Hark! how my voice revives, resounds!

§Echo.§— Zounds!

§Lover.§— I’ll question thee before I go—
Come, answer me more apropos!

§Echo.§— Poh! poh!

§Lover.§— Tell me, fair nymph, if e’er you saw
So sweet a girl as Phœbe Shaw?

§Echo.§— Pshaw!

§Lover.§— Say, what will turn that frisking coney
Into the toils of matrimony?

§Echo.§— Money!

§Lover.§— Has Phœbe not a heavenly brow?
Is it not white as pearl—as snow?

§Echo.§— Ass! no!

§Lover.§— Her eyes! Was ever such a pair?
Are the stars brighter than they are?

§Echo.§— They are!

§Lover.§— Echo, thou liest, but can’t deceive me;
Her eyes eclipse the stars, believe me—

§Echo.§— Leave me!

§Lover.§— But come, thou saucy, pert romancer,
Who is as fair as Phœbe? answer!

§Echo.§— Ann, sir.

ECHO ON WOMAN.

_In the Doric manner._

These verses of Dean Swift were supposed, by the late Mr. Reed, to have been written either in imitation of Lord Stirling’s _Aurora_, or of a scene of Robert Taylor’s old play, entitled _The Hog has lost his Pearl_.

§Shepherd.§— Echo, I ween, will in the woods reply,
And quaintly answer questions. Shall I try?

§Echo.§— Try.

§Shep.§— What must we do our passion to express?

§Echo.§— Press.

§Shep.§— How shall I please her who ne’er loved before?

§Echo.§— Be fore.

§Shep.§— What most moves women when we them address?

§Echo.§— A dress.

§Shep.§— Say, what can keep her chaste whom I adore?

§Echo.§— A door.

§Shep.§— If music softens rocks, love tunes my lyre.

§Echo.§— Liar.

§Shep.§— Then teach me, Echo, how shall I come by her?

§Echo.§— Buy her.

§Shep.§— When bought, no question I shall be her dear.

§Echo.§— Her deer.

§Shep.§— But deer have horns: how must I keep her under?

§Echo.§— Keep her under.

§Shep.§— But what can glad me when she’s laid on bier?

§Echo.§— Beer.

§Shep.§— What, must I do when women will be kind?

§Echo.§— Be kind.

§Shep.§— What must I do when women will be cross?

§Echo.§— Be cross.

§Shep.§— Lord! what is she that can so turn and wind?

§Echo.§— Wind.

§Shep.§— If she be wind, what stills her when she blows?

§Echo.§— Blows.

§Shep.§— But if she bang again, still should I bang her?

§Echo.§— Bang her.

§Shep.§— Is there no way to moderate her anger?

§Echo.§— Hang her.

§Shep.§— Thanks, gentle Echo! right thy answers tell
What woman is, and how to guard her well.

§Echo.§— Guard her well.

BONAPARTE AND THE ECHO.

The original publication of the following exposed the publisher, Palm, of Nuremberg, to trial by court-martial. He was sentenced to be shot at Braunau in 1807,—a severe retribution for a few lines of poetry.

§Bona.§—Alone I am in this sequestered spot, not overheard.

§Echo.§—Heard.

§Bona.§—’Sdeath! Who answers me? What being is there nigh?

§Echo.§—I.

§Bona.§—Now I guess! To report my accents Echo has made her task.

§Echo.§—Ask.

§Bona.§—Knowest thou whether London will henceforth continue to resist?

§Echo.§—Resist.

§Bona.§—Whether Vienna and other courts will oppose me always?

§Echo.§—Always.

§Bona.§—Oh, Heaven! what must I expect after so many reverses?

§Echo.§—Reverses.

§Bona.§—What! should I, like coward vile, to compound be reduced?

§Echo.§—Reduced.

§Bona.§—After so many bright exploits be forced to restitution?

§Echo.§—Restitution.

§Bona.§—Restitution of what I’ve got by true heroic feats and martial
address?

§Echo.§—Yes.

§Bona.§—What will be the end of so much toil and trouble?

§Echo.§—Trouble.

§Bona.§—What will become of my people, already too unhappy?

§Echo.§—Happy.

§Bona.§—What should I then be that I think myself immortal?

§Echo.§—Mortal.

§Bona.§—The whole world is filled with the glory of my name, you know.

§Echo.§—No.

§Bona.§—Formerly its fame struck the vast globe with terror.

§Echo.§—Error.

§Bona.§—Sad Echo, begone! I grow infuriate! I die!

§Echo.§—Die![13]

Footnote 13:

Napoleon himself, (_Voice from St. Helena_,) when asked about the
execution of Palm, said, “All that I recollect is, that Palm was
arrested by order of Davoust, and, I believe, tried, condemned, and
shot, for having, while the country was in possession of the French
and under military occupation, not only excited rebellion among the
inhabitants and urged them to rise and massacre the soldiers, but also
attempted to instigate the soldiers themselves to refuse obedience to
their orders and to mutiny against their generals. I _believe_ that he
met with a fair trial.”

EPIGRAM ON THE SYNOD OF DORT.

Dordrechti synodus, nodus; chorus integer, æger;
Conventus, ventus; sessio stramen. Amen!

Referring to the extravagant price demanded in London, in 1831, to see and hear the Orpheus of violinists, the Sunday Times asked,—

What are they who pay three guineas
To hear a tune of Paganini’s?
§Echo.§—Pack o’ ninnies

THE CRITIC’S EPIGRAMMATIC EXCUSE.

I’d fain praise your poem, but tell me, how is it,
When I cry out, “Exquisite,” Echo cries, “Quiz it!”

ECHO ANSWERING.

What must be done to conduct a newspaper right?—Write.
What is necessary for a farmer to assist him?—System.
What would give a blind man the greatest delight?—Light.
What is the best counsel given by a justice of the peace?—Peace.
Who commit the greatest abominations?—Nations.
What cry is the greatest terrifier?—Fire.
What are some women’s chief exercise?—Sighs.

REMARKABLE ECHOES.

An echo in Woodstock Park, Oxfordshire, repeats seventeen syllables by day, and twenty by night. One on the banks of the Lago del Lupo, above the fall of Terni, repeats fifteen. But the most remarkable echo known is one on the north side of Shipley Church, in Sussex, which distinctly repeats twenty-one syllables.

In the Abbey church at St. Alban’s is a curious echo. The tick of a watch may be heard from one end of the church to the other. In Gloucester Cathedral, a gallery of an octagonal form conveys a whisper seventy-five feet across the nave.

The following inscription is copied from this gallery:—

Doubt not but God, who sits on high,
Thy inmost secret prayers can hear;
When a dead wall thus cunningly
Conveys soft whispers to the ear.

In the Cathedral of Girgenti, in Sicily, the slightest whisper is borne with perfect distinctness from the great western door to the cornice behind the high altar,—a distance of two hundred and fifty feet. By a most unlucky coincidence, the precise focus of divergence at the former station was chosen for the place of the confessional. Secrets never intended for the public ear thus became known, to the dismay of the confessors, and the scandal of the people, by the resort of the curious to the opposite point, (which seems to have been discovered accidentally,) till at length, one listener having had his curiosity somewhat over-gratified by hearing his wife’s avowal of her own infidelity, this tell-tale peculiarity became generally known, and the confessional was removed.

In the whispering-gallery of St. Paul’s, London, the faintest sound is faithfully conveyed from one side to the other of the dome, but is not heard at any intermediate point.

In the Manfroni Palace at Venice is a square room about twenty-five feet high, with a concave roof, in which a person standing in the centre, and stamping gently with his foot on the floor, hears the sound repeated a great many times; but as his position deviates from the centre, the reflected sounds grow fainter, and at a short distance wholly cease. The same phenomenon occurs in the large room of the Library of the Museum at Naples.

EXTRAORDINARY FACTS IN ACOUSTICS.

An intelligent and very respectable gentleman, named Ebenezer Snell, who is still living, at the age of eighty and upwards, was in a corn-field with a negro on the 17th of June, 1776, in the township of Cummington, Mass., one hundred and twenty-nine miles west of Bunker Hill by the course of the road, and at least one hundred by an air-line. Some time during the day, the negro was lying on the ground, and remarked to Ebenezer that there was war somewhere, for he could distinctly hear the cannonading. Ebenezer put his ear to the ground, and also heard the firing distinctly, and for a considerable time. He remembers the fact, which made a deep impression on his mind, as plainly as though it was yesterday.

Over water, or a surface of ice, sound is propagated with remarkable clearness and strength. Dr. Hutton relates that, on a quiet part of the Thames near Chelsea, he could hear a person read distinctly at the distance of one hundred and forty feet, while on the land the same could only be heard at seventy-six. Lieut. Foster, in the third Polar expedition of Capt. Parry, found that he could hold conversation with a man across the harbor of Port Bowen, a distance of six thousand six hundred and ninety-six feet, or about a mile and a quarter. This, however, falls short of what is asserted by Derham and Dr. Young,—viz., that at Gibraltar the human voice has been heard at the distance of ten miles, the distance across the strait.

Dr. Hearn, a Swedish physician, relates that he heard guns fired at Stockholm, on the occasion of the death of one of the royal family, in 1685, at the distance of thirty Swedish or one hundred and eighty British miles.

The cannonade of a sea-fight between the English and Dutch, in 1672, was heard across England as far as Shrewsbury, and even in Wales, a distance of upwards of two hundred miles from the scene of action.

Puzzles.

The fastidiousness of mere book-learning, or the overweening importance of politicians and men of business, may be employed to cast contempt, or even odium, on the labor which is spent in the solution of puzzles which produce no useful knowledge when disclosed; but that which agreeably amuses both young and old should, if not entitled to regard, be at least exempt from censure. Nor have the greatest wits of this and other countries disdained to show their skill in these trifles. Homer, it is said, died of chagrin at not being able to expound a riddle propounded by a simple fisherman,—“_Leaving what’s taken, what we took not we bring_.” Aristotle was amazingly perplexed, and Philetas, the celebrated grammarian and poet of Cos, puzzled himself to death in fruitless endeavors to solve the sophism called by the ancients _The Liar_:—“If you say of yourself, ‘I lie,’ and in so saying tell the truth, you lie. If you say, ‘I lie,’ and in so saying tell a lie, you tell the truth.” Dean Swift, who could so agreeably descend to the slightest badinage, was very fond of puzzles. Many of the best riddles in circulation may be traced to the sportive moments of men of the greatest celebrity, who gladly seek occasional relaxation from the graver pursuits of life, in comparative trifles.

Mrs. Barbauld says, Finding out riddles is the same kind of exercise for the mind as running, leaping, and wrestling are for the body. They are of no use in themselves; they are not work, but play; but they prepare the body, and make it alert and active for any thing it may be called upon to perform. So does the finding out good riddles give quickness of thought, and facility for turning about a problem every way, and viewing it in every possible light.

The French have excelled all other people in this species of literary amusement. Their language is favorable to it, and their writers have always indulged a fondness for it. As a specimen of the ingenuity of the earlier literati, we transcribe a rebus of Jean Marot, a favorite old priest, and valet-de-chambre to Francis I. It would be inexplicable to most readers without the version in common French, which is subjoined:—

riant fus n’agueres
En pris
t D’une o affettée
u tile s
espoir haitée
Que vent
ai
d
Mais fus quand pr s’amour is
ris
Car j’apper ses mignards
que
traits
Etoient d’amour mal as
éo
riant
En
L’œil
Ecus de elle a pris
moi
manière rusée
te me nant
Et quand je veux chez elle e faire e
que
Me dit to y us mal appris
riant
En

RONDEAU.

En souriant fus n’agueres surpris
D’une subtile entrée tous affettée,
Que sous espoir ai souvent souhaitée,
Mais fus deçue, quand s’amour entrepris;
Car j’apperçus que ses mignards souris
Etoient soustraits d’amour mal assurée
En souriant.