Character Sketches of Romance Volume I Part 125

She _[Effie Deans_] amused herself with visiting the dairy ... and was so near discovering herself to Mary Hetly by betraying her aquaintance with the celebrated receipt for Dunlop cheese, that she compared herself to Bedredeen Ha.s.san, whom the vizier his father in-law discovered by his superlative skill in composing cream-tarts with pepper in them.

In these few lines are several gross errors: (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 and uncle, but his mother, the widow of Nouredeen, who made the discovery, and why? for the best of all reasons--because she herself had taught her son the receipt. The party were at Damascus at the time.--_Arabian Nights_ ("Nouredeen Ali," etc.). (See page 389, "Thackeray.")

"What!" said Bedredeen, "was everything in my house to be broken and destroyed ... only because I did not put pepper in a cheese-cake!"

_Arabian Nights_ ("Nouredeen Ali," etc.).

Again, Sir Walter Scott speaks of "the philosopher who appealed from Philip inflamed with wine to Philip in his hours of sobriety"

(_Antiquary_, x.). This "philosopher" was a poor old woman.

SHAKESPEARE. _Althaea and the Fire-brand_. Shakespeare says, (_Henry IV_. act ii. sc. 2) that "Althaea dreamt that she was delivered of a fire-brand." It was not Althaea, but Hecuba, who dreamed, a little before Paris was born, that her offspring was a brand that consumed the kingdom. The tale of Althaea is, that the Fates laid a log of wood on a fire, and told her that her son would live till that log was consumed; whereupon she s.n.a.t.c.hed up the log and kept it from the fire, till one day her son Melea'ger offended her, when she flung the log on the fire, and her son died, as the Fates predicted.

_Bohemia's Coast_. In the _Winter's Tale_ the vessel bearing the infant Perdita is "driven by storm on the coast of Bohemia;" but Bohemia has no seaboard at all.

In _Coriola.n.u.s_, Shakespeare makes Volumnia the mother, and Virgilia the wife, of Coriola.n.u.s; but his _wife_ was Volumnia, and his _mother_ Veturia.

_Delphi an Island_. In the same drama (act iii. sc. 1) Delphi is spoken of as an island; but Delphi is a city of Phocis, containing a temple to Apollo. It is no island at all.

_Duncan's Murder_. Macbeth did not murder Duncan in the castle of Inverness, as stated in the play, but at "the smith's house," near Elgin (1039).

_Elsinore_. Shakespeare speaks of the beetling cliff of Elsinore, whereas Elsinore has no cliffs at all.

What if it [_the ghost_] tempt you toward the flood.

Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff That beetles o'er its base into the sea?

_Hamlet_, act i. sc. 4.

_The Ghost_, in _Hamlet_, is evidently a Roman Catholic; he talks of purgatory, absolution, and other Catholic dogmas; but the Danes at the time were pagans.

_St. Louis_. Shakespeare, in _Henry V_. act i. sc. 2, calls Louis X.

"St. Louis," but "St. Louis" was Louis IX. It was Louis IX. whose "grandmother was Isabel," issue of Charles de Lorraine, the last of the Carlovingians. Louis X. was the son of Philippe IV. (_le Bel_) and grandson of Philippe III. and "Isabel of Aragon," not Isabel, "heir of Capet of the line of Charles the duke of Lorain."

_Macbeth_ was no tyrant, as Shakespeare makes him out to be, but a firm and equitable prince, whose t.i.tle to the throne was better than that of Duncan.

Again, _Macbeth_ was not slain by Macduff at Dunsin'ane, but made his escape from the battle, and was slain in 1056, at Lumphanan.--Lardner, _Cabinet Cyc_., 17-19.

In _The Winter's Tale_, act v. sc. 2, one of the gentlemen refers to Julio Romano, the Italian artist and architect (1492-1546), certainly some 1800 years or more before Romano was born.

In _Twelfth Night_, the Illyrian clown speaks of St. Bennet's Church, London. "The triplex, sir, is a good tripping measure, or the bells of St. Bennet's sure may put you in mind: one, two, three" (act v. sc.

1); as if the duke was a Londoner.

SPENSER. _Bacchus_ or _Saturn_? In the _Faery Queen_, iii. 11, Britomart saw in the castle of Bu'sirane (_3 syl_.), a picture descriptive of the love of Saturn, who had changed himself into a centaur out of love for Erig'one. It was not Saturn, but Bacchus who loved Erig'one, and he was not tranformed into a centaur, but to a horse.

_Beone_ or _Oenone_? In bk. vi. 9 (_Faery Queen_) the lady-love of Paris is called Benone, which ought to be Oenone. The poet says that Paris was "by Plexippus' brook" when the golden apple was brought to him; but no such brook is mentioned by any cla.s.sic author.

_Critias and Socrates_. In bk. ii. 7 _(Faery Queen)_ Spenser says: "The wise Socrates ... poured out his life ... to the dear Critias; his dearest bel-amie." It was not Socrates, but Theram'enes, one of the thirty tyrants, who in quaffing the poison-cup, said smiling, "This I drink to the health of fair Critias."--Cicero, _Tusculan Questions_.

_Critias_ or _Crito_? In _Faery Queen_, iv. (introduction), Spenser says that Socrates often discoursed of love to his friend Critias; but it was Crito, or rather Criton that the poet means.

_Cyprus_ and _Paphos_. Spenser makes Sir Scudamore speak of a temple of Venus, far more beautiful than "that in Paphos, or that in Cyprus;"

but Paphos was merely a town in the island of Cyprus, and the "two"

are but one and the same temple.--_Faery Queen_, iv. 10.

_Hippomanes_. Spenser says the golden apples of Mammon's garden were better than Those with which the Eubaean young man won Swift Atalanta.

_Faery Queen_, ii. 7.

The young man was Hippom'anes. He was not a "Eubaean," but a native of Onchestos, in Boeo'tia.

TENNYSON, in the _Last Tournament_, says (ver. I), Dagonet was knighted in mockery by Sir Gaw'ain; but in the _History of Prince Arthur_ we are distinctly told that King Arthur knighted him with his own hand (pt. ii. 91).

In _Gareth and Lynette_ the same poet says that Grareth was the son of Lot and Bellicent; but we are told a score times and more in the _History of Prince Arthur_, that he was the son of Margawse (Arthur's sister and Lot's wife, pt. i. 36).

King Lot ... wedded Margawse; Nentres ... wedded Elain.--Sir T.

Malory, _History of Prince Arthur_, i. 2, 35, 36.

In the same _Idyll_ Tennyson has changed Liones to Lyonors; but, according to the collection of romances edited by Sir T. Malory, these were quite different persons. Liones, daughter of Sir Persaunt, and sister of Linet of Castle Perilous, married Sir Gareth (pt. i. 153); but Lyonors was the daughter of Earl Sanam, and was the unwedded mother of Sir Borre by King Arthur (pt. i. 15).

Again, Tennyson makes Gareth marry Lynette, and leaves the true heroine, Lyonors, in the cold; but the _History_ makes Grareth marry Liones _(Lyonors)_, and Gaheris his brother marries Linet.

Thus endeth the history of Sir Gareth, that wedded Dame Liones of the Castle Perilous; and also of Sir Gaheris, who wedded her sister Dame Linet.--Sir T. Malory, _History of Prince Arthur_ (end of pt. i.).

Again, in _Gareth and Lynette_, by erroneously beginning day with sunrise instead of the previous eve, Tennyson reverses the order of the knights, and makes the _fresh green morn_ represent the decline of day, or, as he calls it, "Hesperus" or "Evening Star;" and the blue star of evening he makes "Phosphorus" or the "Morning Star."

Once more, in _Gareth and Lynette_, the poet-laureate makes the combat between Gareth and Death finished at a single blow, but in the _History_, Gareth fights from dawn to dewy eve.

Thus they fought [_from sunrise_] till it was past noon, and would not stint, till, at last both lacked wind, and then stood they wagging, staggering, panting, blowing, and bleeding ... and when they had rested them awhile, they went to battle again, trasing, rasing, and foyning, as two boars ... Thus they endured till evening-song time.--Sir T. Malory, _History of Prince Arthur_, i. 136.

In _the Last Tournament_, Tennyson makes Sir Tristram stabbed to death, by Sir Mark in Tintag'il Castle, Cornwall, while toying with his aunt, Isolt _the Fair_, but in the _History_ he was in bed in Brittany, severely wounded, and dies of a shock, because his wife tells him the ship in which he expected his aunt to come was sailing into port with a _black_ sail instead of a white one.

The poet-laureate has deviated so often from the collection of tales edited by Sir Thomas Malory, that it would occupy too much s.p.a.ce to point out his deviations even in the briefest manner.

THACKERAY, in _Vanity Fair_, has taken from Sir Walter Scott his allusion to Bedredeen, and not from the _Arabian Nights._ He has, therefore, fallen into the same error, and added two more. He says: "I ought to have remembered the pepper which the Princess of Persia puts into the cream-tarts in India, sir" (ch. iii.). The charge was that Bedredeen made his _cheese-cakes without_ putting pepper into them.

But Thackeray has committed in this allusion other blunders. It was not a "princess" at all, but Bedredeen Ha.s.san, who for the nonce had become a confectioner. He learned the art of making cheese-cakes from his mother (a widow). Again, it was not a "princess of Persia," for Bedredeen's mother was the widow of the vizier of Balsora, at that time quite independent of Persia.

VICTOR HUGO, in _Les Travailleurs de la Mer_, renders "the Frith of Forth" by the phrase _Premier des quatre_, mistaking "Frith" _for first_, and "Forth" _for fourth_ or four.

In his _Marie Tudor_ he refers to the _History and Annals of Henry VII_. par Franc Baronum, "meaning" _Historia, etc_.

_Henrici Septimi_, per Francisc.u.m Baconum.

VIEGIL has placed aeneas in a harbor which did not exist at the time.

"Portusque require Velinos" _(aeneid_, vi. 366). It was Curius Dentatus who cut a gorge through the rocks to let the waters of the Velinus into the Nar. Before this was done, the Velinus was merely a number of stagnant lakes, and the blunder is about the same as if a modern poet were to make Columbus pa.s.s through the Suez Ca.n.a.l.

In _aeneid_, in. 171 Virgil makes aeneas speak of "Ausonia;" but as Italy was so called from Auson, son of Ulysses and Calypso, of course aeneas could not have known the name.

Again, in _aeneid_ ix. 571, he represents Chorinseus as slain by Asy'las; but in bk. xii. 298 he is alive again. Thus:

Chorinaeum sternit Asylas