Literary Blunders Part 3

''As ocean sweeps the labour'd mole away,

into

''Comme la mer dtruit les travaux de la taupe.''

D'Israeli records two comical translations from English into French. ''Ainsi douleur, va-t'en ''for _woe begone_ is almost too good; and the man who mistook the expression ''the officer was broke'' as meaning broke on a wheel and translated it by _rou_ made a very serious matter of what was possibly but a small fault.

In the translation of _The Conscript_ by Erckmann-Chatrian, the old botcher is turned into the old butcher.

Sometimes in attempting to correct a supposed blunder of another we fall into

a very real one of our own. Thus a few years ago, before we knew so much about folk-lore as we do now, we should very probably have pointed out that Cinderella's gla.s.s slipper owed its existence to a misprint. Fur was formerly so rare and so highly prized that its use was restricted by sumptuary laws to kings, princes, and persons holding honourable offices. In these laws sable is called vair, and it has been a.s.serted that Perrault marked the dignity conferred upon Cinderella by the fairy's gift of a slipper of vair, a privilege confined to the highest rank of princesses.

It is further stated that by an error of the printer _vair_ was changed into _verre_. Now, however, we find in the various versions which have been collected of this favourite tale that, however much the incidents may differ, the slipper is almost invariably made of some rigid material, and in the earliest forms the unkind sisters cut their feet to make them fit the slipper. This unpleasant incident was omitted by Perrault, but he kept the rigid material and made the gla.s.s slipper famous.

The Revisers of the Old Testament

translation have shown us that the famous verse in Job, ''Oh that mine adversary had written a book,'' is wrong; but it will never drop out of our language and literature. The Revised Version is certainly much more in accordance with our ideas of the time when the book was written, a period when authors could not have been very common:--

''Oh that I had one to hear me!

(Lo, here is my signature, let the Almighty answer me;) And that I had the indictment which mine adversary hath written!

Surely I would carry it upon my shoulder; I would bind it unto me as a crown.''

Silk Buckingham drew attention to the fact that some translations of the Bible had been undertaken by persons ignorant of the idioms of the language into which they were translating, and he gave an instance from an Arabic translation where the text ''Judge not, that ye be not judged'' was rendered ''Be not just to others, lest others should be just to you.''

The French have tried ingeniously to

explain the difficulty contained in _St.

Matthew_ xix. 24, ''It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of G.o.d,'' by affirming that the translators mistook the supposed word < p="">

The humours of translation are numerous, but perhaps the most eccentric example is to be found in Stanyhurst's rendering of _Virgil_, published in 1583.

It is full of cant words, and reads like the work of a madman. This is a fair specimen of the work:--

''Theese thre were upbotching, not shapte, but partlye wel onward, A clapping fierbolt (such as oft, with rownce robel-hobble, Jove to the ground clattreth) but yeet not finished holye.''

M. Guyot, translating some Latin epigrams under the t.i.tle of _Fleurs, Morales, et pigrammatiques_, uses the singular forms Monsieur Zole and Mademoiselle Lycoris.

The same author, when translating the letters of Cicero (1666), turns Pomponius into M. de Pomponne.

Pitt's friend, Pepper Arden, Master of the Rolls, Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas and Lord Alvanley, was rather hot-tempered, and his name was considered somewhat appropriate, but to make it still more so his friends translated it into ''Mons. Poivre Ardent.''

This reminds one of the Frenchman who toasted Dr. Johnson, not as Mr. Rambler, but as Mr. Vagabond.

Tom Moore notices some amusing mis- translations in his _Diary_. Major Cartwright, who was called the Father of Reform (although a wit suggested that Mother of Reform would have been a more appropriate t.i.tle), supposed that the _Brevia Parliamentaria_ of Prynne stood for ''short parliaments.'' Lord Lansdowne told Moore that he was with Lord Holland when the letter containing this precious bit of erudition arrived.

Another story of Lord Lansdowne's is equally good. His French servant announced Dr. Mansell, the Master of Trinity, when he called, as ''Matre des Crmonies de la Trinit.''

Moore also relates that an account

having appeared in the London papers of a row at the Stock Exchange, where some strangers were hustled, it appeared in the Paris papers in this form: ''Mons.

Stock Exchange tait chauff,'' etc.

There is something to be said in favour of the humorous translation of _Magna est veritas et prevalabit_--''Great is truth, it will prevail a bit,'' for it is probably truer than the original. He who construed C

The translator of _Inter Calicem supremaque labra_ as Betwixt Dover and Calais gave as his reason that Dover was _Angli

Although not a blunder nor apparently a joke, we may conclude this chapter with a reference to Shakespeare's remarkable translation of _Finis Coronat opus_. Helena remarks in _All's well that Ends well_ (act iv., sc. 4):--

''All's well that ends well: still _the fine's the crown_.''

In the _Second Part of King Henry VI_.

(act v., sc. 2) old Lord Clifford, just before he dies, is made to use the French translation of the proverb:--

''La fin couronne les uvres.''

In the first Folio we read:--

''La fin corrone les eumenes.''

CHAPTER IV.

BIBLIOGRAPEIICAL BLUNDERS.

THERE is no cla.s.s that requires to be dealt with more leniently than do bibliographers, for pitfalls are before and behind them. It is impossible for any one man to see all the books he describes in a general bibliography; and, in consequence of the necessity of trusting to second-hand information, he is often led imperceptibly into gross error. Watt's _Bibliotheca Britannica_ is a most useful and valuable work, but, as may be expected from so comprehensive a compilation, many mistakes have crept into it: for instance, under the head of Philip Beroaldus, we find the following t.i.tle of a work: ''A short view of the Persian Monarchy, published at the end of Daniel's Works.'' The mystery of the last part of the t.i.tle is cleared up when we

find that it should properly be read, ''_and of Daniel's Weekes_,'' it being a work on prophecy. The librarian of the old Marylebone Inst.i.tution, knowing as little of Latin as the monk did of Hebrew when he described a book as having the beginning where the end should be, catalogued an edition of dri Fabulorum.''

Two blunders that a bibliographer is very apt to fall into are the rolling of different authors of the same name into one, and the creation of an author who never existed. The first kind we may ill.u.s.trate by mentioning the dismay of the worthy Bishop Jebb, when he found himself identified in Watt's _Bibliotheca_ with his uncle, the Unitarian writer. Of the second kind we might point out the names of men whose lives have been written and yet who never existed. In the _Zoological Biography_ of Aga.s.siz, published by the Ray Society, there is an imaginary author, by name J. K. Broch, whose work, _Entomologische Briefe_, was published in 1823. This pamphlet is really anonymous, and was written by

one who signed himself J. K. Broch, is merely an explanation in the catalogue from which the entry was taken that it was a _brochure_. Moreri created an author, whom he styled Dorus Basilicus, out of the t.i.tle of James I.'s ron basilikn>, and Bishop Walton supposed the t.i.tle of the great Arabic Dictionary, the _Kamoos_ or Ocean, to be the name of an author whom he quotes as ''Camus.'' In the article on Stenography in Rees's Cyclop

John Nicolai published a _Treatise on the Signs of the Ancients_ at the beginning of the last century, and the writer of the article, having seen it stated that a certain fact was to be found in Nicolai, jumped to the conclusion that it was the name of a place, and wrote, ''It was at Nicolai that this method of writing was first introduced to the Greeks by Xenophon himself.'' Tn another part of the same article the oldest method of shorthand extant, ent.i.tled ''Ars Scribendi Characteris,''

is said to have been printed about the year 1412--that is, long before printing was invented. In the _Biographie Univer

selle_ there is a life of one Nicholas Donis, by Baron Walckenaer, which is a blundering alteration of the real name of a Benedictine monk called Dominus Nicholas.

This, however, is not the only time that a t.i.tle has been taken for a name. An eminent bookseller is said to have received a letter signed George Winton, proposing a life of Pitt; but, as he did not know the name, he paid no attention to the letter, and was much astonished when he was afterwards told that his correspondent was no less a person than George Pretyman Tomline, Bishop of Winchester. This is akin to the mistake of the Scotch doctor attending on the Princess Charlotte during her illness, who said that ''ane Jean Saroom'' had been continually calling, but, not knowing the fellow, he had taken no notice of him.

Thus the Bishop of Salisbury was sent away by one totally ignorant of his dignity. A similar blunder was made by a bibliographer, for in Hotten's _Handbook to the Topography and Family History of England and Wales_ will be found an entry of an ''a.s.size Sermon by Bishop Wigorn,

in the Cathedral at Worcester, 1690.''

This was really Bishop Stillingfleet. There is a reverse case of a catalogue made by a worthy bookseller of the name of William London, which was long supposed to be the work of Dr. William Juxon, the Bishop of London at the time of publication.

The entry in the _Biographie Moderne_ of ''Brigham _le jeune_ ou Brigham Young''

furnishes a fine instance of a writer succ.u.mbing to the ever-present temptation to be too clever by half. A somewhat similar blunder is that of the late Mr.

Dircks. The first reprint of the Marquis of Worcester's _Century of Inventions_ was issued by Thomas Payne, the highly respected bookseller of the Mews Gate, in 1746; but in _Worcesteriana_ (1866) Mr.

Dircks positively a.s.serts that the notorious Tom Paine was the publisher of it, thus ignoring the different spelling of the two names.

In a French book on the invention of printing, the sentence ''Le berceau de l'imprimerie'' was misread by a German, who turned Le Berceau into a man{.??} D'Israeli tells us that _Mantissa_, the t.i.tle

of the Appendix to Johnstone's _History of Plants_, was taken for the name of an author by D'Aquin, the French king's physician. The author of the _Curiosities of Literature_ also relates that an Italian misread the description _Enrichi de deux listes_ on the t.i.tle-page of a French book of travels, and, taking it for the author's name, alluded to the opinions of Mons. Enrichi De Deux Listes; but really this seems almost too good to be true.

If we searched bibliographical literature we should find a fair crop of authors who never existed; for when once a blunder of this kind is set going, it seems to bear a charmed life. Mr. Daydon Jackson mentions some amusing instances of imaginary authors made out of t.i.tle-pages in his _Guide to the Literature of Botany_.

An anonymous work of A. Ma.s.salongo, ent.i.tled _Graduale Pa.s.sagio delle Crittogame alle Fanerogame_ (1876), has been entered in a German bibliography as written by G. Pa.s.sagio. In an English list Kelaart's _Flora Calpensis: Reminiscences of Gibraltar_ (1846) appears as the work of a lady--

Christian name, Flora; _surname_, Calpensis.

In 1837 a _Botanical-Lexicon_ was published by an author who described himself as ''The Rev. Patrick Keith, Clerk, F.L.S.''

This somewhat pedantic form deceived a foreign cataloguer, who took Clerk for the surname, and contracted ''Patrick Keith''

into the initials P.K. More inexcusable was the blunder of an American who, in describing J. E. H. Gordon's work on _Electricity_, changed the author's degree into the initials of a collaborator, one Cantab. The joint authors were stated to be J. E. H. Gordon and B. A. Cantab.

A very amusing, but a quite excusable error, was made by Allibone in his _Dictionary of English Literature_, under the heading of Isaac D'Israeli. He notices new editions of that author's works revised by the Right Hon. the Chancellor of the Exchequer, of course Isaac's son Benjamin, afterwards Prime Minister and Earl of Beaconsfield; but unfortunately there were two Chancellors in 1858, and Allibone chooses the wrong one, printing, as useful information to the reader, that the reviser was Sir George

Cornewall Lewis. An instance of the danger of inconsiderate explanation will be found in a little book by a German lady, f.a.n.n.y Lewald, ent.i.tled _England and Schottland_. The auth.o.r.ess, when in London, visited the theatre in order to see a play founded on Cooper's novel _The Wept of Wish-ton Wish_; and being unable to understand the t.i.tle, she calls it the ''Will of the Whiston Wisp,'' which she tells us means an _ignis fatuus_.

A writer in a German paper was led into an amusing blunder by an English review a few years ago. The reviewer, having occasion to draw a distinction between George and Robert Cruikshank, spoke of the former as the real Simon Pure. The German, not understanding the allusion, gravely told his readers that George Cruikshank was a pseudonym, the author's real name being Simon Pure.

This seems almost too good to be equalled, but a countryman of our own has blundered nearly as grossly. William Taylor, in his _Historic Survey of German Poetry_ (1830), prints the following absurd statement: ''G.o.dfred of Berlichingen is one

of the earliest imitations of the Shakspeare tragedy which the German school has produced. It was admirably translated into English in 1799 at Edinburg by _William_ Scott, advocate, no doubt the same person who, under the poetical but a.s.sumed name of _Walter_, has since become the most extensively popular of the British writers.''

The cause of this mistake we cannot explain, but the reason for it is to be found in the fact which has lately been announced that a few copies of the translation, with the misprint of William for Walter in the t.i.tle, were issued before the error was discovered.

Jacob Boehm, the theosophist, wrote some Reflections on a theological treatise by one Isaiah Stiefel,[6] the t.i.tle of which puzzled one of his modern French biographers. The word Stiefel in German means a boot, and the Frenchman therefore gave the t.i.tle of Boehm's tract as ''Reflexions sur les Bottes d'Isaie.''

[6] ''Bedencken ber Esai