Character Sketches of Romance Volume I Part 124

CID (_The_). When Alfonso succeeded his brother Sancho and banished the Cid, Rodrigo is made to say:

Prithee say where were these gallants (Bold enough when far from blows)?

Where were they when I, unaided, Rescued thee from thirteen foes?

The historic fact is, not that Rodrigo rescued Alfonso from thirteen foes, but that the Cid rescued Sancho from thirteen of Alfonso's foes.

Eleven he slew, and two he put to flight.--_The Cid_, xvi. 78.

COLMAN. Job Thornberry says to Peregrine, who offers to a.s.sist him in his difficulties, "Desist, young man, in time." But Peregrine was at least 45 years old when so addressed. He was 15 when Job first knew him, and had been absent thirty years in Calcutta. Job Thornberry himself was not above five or six years older.

COWPER calls the rose "the glory of April and May," but June is the great rose month. In the south of England they begin to bloom in the latter half of May, and go on to the middle of July. April roses would be horticultural curiosities.

CRITICS at fault. The licentiate tells Don Quixote that some critics found fault with him for defective memory, and instanced it in this; "We are told that Sancho's a.s.s is stolen, but the author has forgotten to mention who the thief was." This is not the case, as we are distinctly informed that it was stolen by Gines de Pa.s.samonte, one of the galley slaves.--_Don Quixote_, II. i. 3.

d.i.c.kENS, in _Edwin Drood_, puts "rooks and rooks' nests" (instead of daws) "in the tower of Cloisterham."

In _Nicholas Nickleby_ he presents Mr. Squeers as setting his boys "to hoe turnips" in midwinter.

In _The Tale of Two Cities_, iii. 4, he says: "The name of the strong man of Old Scripture descended to the chief functionary who worked the guillotine." But the name of this functionary was Sanson, not Samson.

GALEN says that man has seven bones in the sternum (instead of three); and Sylvius, in reply to Vesalius, contends that "in days of yore the robust chests of heroes had more bones than men now have."

GREENE (_Robert_) speaks of Delphos as an _island_; But Delphos, or rather Delphi, was a city of Phocis, and no island. "Six n.o.blemen were sent to the isle of Delphos."--_Donastus and Faunia_. Probably he confounded the city of Delphi with the isle of Delos.

HALLIWELL, in his _Archaic Dictionary_, says: "Crouchmas means Christmas," and adds that Tusser is his authority. But this is altogether a mistake. Tusser, in his "_May_ Remembrances," says: "From bull cow fast, till Crouchmas be past," _i.e._ St. Helen's Day. Tusser evidently means from May 3 (the invention of the Cross) to August 18 (St. Helen's Day or the Cross-mas), not Christmas.

HIGGONS (_Bevil_) says:

The Cyprian queen, drawn by Apelles hand.

Of perfect beauty did the pattern stand!

But then bright nymphs from every part of Greece Did all contribute to adorn the piece.

_To Sir G.o.dfrey Kneller_ (1780).

Tradition says that Apelles model was either Phyrne, or Campaspe, afterwards his wife. Campbell has borrowed these lines, but ascribes the painting to Protog'enes the Rhodian.

When first the Rhodian's mimic art arrayed The queen of Beauty in her Cyprian shade, The happy master mingled in the piece Each look that charmed him in the fair of Greece.

_Pleasures of Hope_, ii.

JOHNSON (_Dr_.) makes Addison speak of Steele as "Little d.i.c.ky"

whereas the person so called by Addison was not Richard Steele, but a dwarfish actor who played "Gomez" in Dryden's _Spanish Fryar_.

LONDON NEWSPAPER (_A_), one of the leading journals of the day, has spoken three times within two years of "pa.s.sing _under_ the Caudine Forks," evidently supposing them to be a "yoke" instead of a valley or mountain pa.s.s.

LONGFELLOW calls Erig'ena a _Scotchman_, whereas the very word means an Irishman.

Done into Latin by that Scottish beast.

Erigena Johannes.

_Golden Legend_.

"Without doubt, the poet mistook John Duns _[Scottus]_, who died in 1308, for John Scottus _[Erigena]_, who died in 875. Erigena translated into Latin, _St. Dionysius._ He was lat.i.tudinarian in his views, and anything but 'a Scottish beast or Calvinist.'"

_The Two Angels_. Longfellow crowns the _death-angel_ with amaranth, with which Milton says, "the spirits elect bind their resplendent locks;" and his angel of _life_ he crowns with asphodels, the flowers of Pluto or the grave.

MELVILLE (_Whyte_) makes a very prominent part of his story called _Holmby House_ turn on the death of a favorite hawk named Diamond, which Mary Cave tossed off, and saw "fall lifeless at the king's feet"

(ch. xxix.). In ch. xlvi. this very hawk is represented to be alive; "proud, beautiful, and cruel, like a _Venus Victrix_ it perched on her mistress's wrist, unhooded."

MILTON. "Colkitto or Macdonnel or Galasp." In this line of Sonnet XI, Milton seems to speak of three different persons, but in reality they are one and the same; i.e., Macdonnel, son of Colkittoch, son of Gillespie (Galasp). Colkittoch means left-handed.

In _Comus_ (ver. 880) he makes the siren Ligea sleek her hair with a golden comb, as if she were a Scandinavian mermaid.

MOORE (_Thom_.) says:

The sunflower turns on her G.o.d, when he sets, The same look which she turned when he rose.

_Irish Melodies_, ii. ("Believe Me, if all those Endearing Young Charms").

The sunflower does not turn either to the rising or setting sun. It receives its name solely because it resembles a picture sun. It is not a turn-sun or heliotrope at all.

MORRIS (_W_.), in his _Atalanta's Race_, renders the Greek word _Saophron_ "safron," and says:

She the saffron gown will never wear, And in no flower-strewn couch shall she be laid;

_i.e._ she will never be a bride. Nonnius (bk. xii.) tells us that virtuous women wore a girdled gown called _Saophron_ ("chaste"), to indicate their purity and to prevent indecorous liberties. The gown was not yellow at all, but it was girded with a girdle.

MURPHY, in the _Grecian Daughter_, says (act i. 1):

Have you forgot the elder Dionysius, Surnamed the Tyrant?... Evander came from Greece, And sent the tyrant to his humble rank, Once more reduced to roam for vile subsistence, A wandering sophist thro' the realms of Greece.

It was not Dionysius the _Elder_, but Dionysius the _Younger_, who was the "wandering sophist;" and it was not Evander, but Timoleon, who dethroned him. The elder Dionysius was not dethroned at all, nor even reduced "to humble rank." He reigned thirty-eight years without interruption, and died a king, in the plent.i.tude of his glory, at the age of 63.

In the same play (act iv. 1) Euphrasia says to Dionysius the Younger:

Think of thy father's fate at Corinth, Dionysius.

It was not the father, but the son, (Dionysius the Younger) who lived in exile at Corinth.

In the same play he makes Timo'leon victorious over the Syracusans (that is historically correct); and he makes Euphrasia stab Dionysius the Younger, whereas he retreated to Corinth, and spent his time in debauchery, but supported himself by keeping a school. Of his death nothing is known, but certainly he was not stabbed to death by Euphrasia.--See Plutarch.

RYMER, in his _Foedera_, ascribes to Henry I. (who died in 1135) a preaching expedition for the restoration of Rochester Church, injured by fire in 1177 (vol. I i. 9).

In the previous page Rymer ascribes to Henry I. a deed of gift from "Henry, king of England and _lord of Ireland_;" but every one knows that Ireland was conquered by Henry II., and the deed referred to was the act of Henry III.

On p. 71 of the same vol. Odo is made, in 1298, to swear "in no wise to confederate with Richard I."; whereas Richard I. died in 1199.

SABINE MAID (_The_). G. Gilfillan, in his introductory essay to Longfellow, says: "His ornaments, unlike those of the Sabine maid, have not crushed him." Tarpeia, who opened the gates of Rome to the Sabines, and was crushed to death by their shields, was not a _Sabine_ maid, but a Roman.

SCOTT (_Sir Walter_). In the _Heart of Midlothian_ we read;: