"Hy who quotes without accuracy,"
Dr. Tebnsov, as reported by Puck, nally thinks without coherence."
is indeed wonderful to consider the amount of misquotations which pass current, not only among incoherent among mon who by all ions of thole daily lives are 0 the most intimate rela the works of standard authors. And we may even go so far to say that many of the good sayings attributed to well-known personages never proceeded from them at all, or from anyone else that enn be discovered, while others are as often as not ascribed to the wrong men, Other familiar sentences have become so familiar to one's ears that many persons have never taken the trouble to find out who composed them in the first instance, and a man with a good memory way derive much auusemout from bringing out a string of these household words, one after another, and challenging any mixed company to aay mere they come from, Very few are likely to be correctly placed, and some will oven bu file the audience altogether, But it is the strange misquotations that are constantly made which are 60 inexplicable, One of the commonest is the phrase in which nornly-married mau is spoken of as a Benedict. No loss an authority than Worcester's Dictionary fulls into this curious error 'The reference is of course to the suitor of Beatrice in 'Much Ado about Nothing,' whose it bappone, was not Benedict.
ill more astonishing to find papers like Punch, and others of higher 1g, too, making the egregious blunder of writing about "the monster Franke: In one of the most recent numbers we lave a picture of Mr. Chamberlain being threatened by a gigantic and repulsive-looking Jabonrer, around whose neck hangs a label inscribed " Bohiold your Braukenate Now everybody who tins read Mrs, Sholley's horrible romance knows perfectly well that Frankenstein was not the monster, butte mau who created or manufactured the monster; yet year after year this ridiculous blunder is Topoated, and as people seldom read Mrs. Shelley uow-n-dave it will probably be repeated Lill the end of time, Novelists and magazine-writers, again, talk continually about bursaing the even they are quoting the 'Elegy'; whereas Gray wrote "the noiseless tenour,"—an expression in better harmony altogether with the context than its improved form. Small by degrees and beantifally less" is another instance of these attempted improvements. Sach a sentence does not oooar in any poem j with. which we are acquainted fine by degrsen and beautifully lees," what Prior wrote. "When Greek meets Greek thou comes the tog of war" is another line that no doubt everybody Las written or said except the person to whom it is attributed. What Lee wrote was "When Greeke joined Greeke, then was the tug of war." The line from Lycidas, " Fresh woods and pastures new," is generally, (hough not always, quoted, "Fresh fields and pastures new?" while Batler's couplet "He who rans may fight again, Which he can never do that's slain," appears and reappears ina form which the author of Hadibras ily fail to recognive, "Like 8, few and far between" is nice of a spoilt line, Now Campbell certainly was guilty of the pleonasm " few and far between "—two qualificatives which mean precisely the Bat he wrote, "angel.
while Blair, using the sume metaphor, correctly described them as "short and far between," which is good The phrase cui bone, again, is constantly translated in the sense of " What is the good of it?" whereas its real meaning is "For whose advantage P"—-the first question always put by Cassias when trying an accusation of murder; us much as Lo say, "Who would reap the benefit of this man's death?" The name of Lothario, again, is used as a synonym for Don Jaan—an unprincipled libertine of the Lovelace order, who has reduced seduction to a scien 'The fact is that the original Lothario, the hero of Cervantes' Curious Impertinent,? was what poor Onptain Mayne Reid would onll a gynothrope'—ie, an It wns to cure him of his for womon that the to.friendly ted upon his assovinting with the lady of Luor n virtue he had always syaterunticnlly avoided, and the result was that he fell in love with her. It was no doubt Charles LI who was credited ing n foolish thing and ne} one, but we have seen the description applied to Tames I, and it certainly would seem far able to the prosy pedant than reputable fribble of a grandson, tances of misquotation or misapplied quotation might be multiplied by the score, testifying to the curious want of accuracy which is the inevitable result of cureless and super. ficial reading. ere is one oft-quoted verse in the Bible which is said by Hebrew scholars to convey precisely the opposite of its real meaning, through a remarkable mistrauslation,—"I will lift up my eyes unto the hills, from Whence cometh my help." The true rendering, it is ea " Shall L lift up my eyes unto the hills From whence should my help come?"—the implication being that, og the bills were covered with heathen shrines, the Psalmist would certainly not tarn his eyes in their direction, but would look for aid elsewhere, as stuted antithetically rie, and corroborated by Jeremiah, who said, Truly in vain is salvation looked for from the hills, fand frou tne ' Youve
ised text of Scripture ar very often heard, not only fro wary people bat even from the pu ons erally speaking, however, th sist in word-lapses, which, howe he ting to the listener who knows oh passage, have no very serious of 0 the ge There is a legend 8 certain ooonsion a well-known one of the Gospels being 2 from memory took the comical turm of Qnn the children of the chambermnid fast as long as the bridegroom is with them P"; but it is only fair to eny that the perpetrator of this outrage was not clergyman, But some very lndicrona effects are sometimes produced by mine placed emphasis, and also by that laok of any emphasis at all which is regarded most respectful way ig the Bible in publio by clergy= men who, to the misery of (heir hourers, cultivate the professional pulpit: twang, "And ho spoke unto his sons, saying, Snddlo me the ase, And they anddled him."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.