Literary Blunders: A Chapter in the History of Human Error""

behind them. It is impossible for any one man to see all the books he describes in a general bibliography; and, in c

A short view of the Persian Monarchy, published at the end of Daniel's Works.'' The mystery of the last part of the title is cleared up when we

find that it should properly be read, ``and of Daniel's Weekes,'' it being a work on prophecy. The lib

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, entitled ``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 title 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

endix 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

rittogame alle Fanerogame (1876), has been entered in a German bibliography as written by G. Passagio. 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 s

d 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 Germ

d 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: ``Godfred 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 do

the title of which puzzled one of his modern French biographers. The word Stiefel in German means a boo

s Buchlein: von dreyerley Zustandt des M

often printed in a great hurry, and cannot possibly possess the advantage of correction which a bo

Boyle appeared under the following singular French form: BOY (l

specting the title of Shelley's Prometheus Unbound actually did occur; and, what is more, it was expect

s Promethe

whole calf.'' and th

his new poem `Pro

remain so while t

an age would be s

k as to pay for

C. J. Caesoris. Subject, Religion.'' Still better is the auctioneer's entry of P. V. Maroni's The Opera. Authors, however, are usually so fond of fanciful ear-catching titles, that every excuse must be made for the cataloguer, who mistakes their meaning, and takes them in their literal signification. Who can reprove too severely the classifier who placed Swinburne's Under the Mi

ctioners, deceived the bookseller from its plates of pavilions, temples, etc., into supposing i

, from the Hortus Siccus of an

Old Collector. By W. H. Hyett, F.R.S. Instead of a popular work on the Mediterranean flora by a scientific man, as might reasonably be expected, this is a volume of translations from the Italian and Latin poets. It is scarcely fair to blame the compiler of the Bibliotheca Historio-Naturalis for having ranked both these works among scientific treatises. The English cataloguer who treated as a botanical book Dr. Garnett's selection from Coventry Patmore's poems, entitled Florilegium Amantis, could claim less excuse for hi

es, and calls it Morning Stars of the New World. Somebody prepares seven religious essays, binds them up in a book, and calls it Seven Stormy Sundays. Mr. H. T. Tuckerman makes a book of essays on various subjects, and calls it The Optimist; and then devotes several pages of preface to an argument, lexicon in hand, proving that the applicability of the term optimist is `obvious.' An editor, at intervals of leisure, indulges his true poetic taste for the pleasure of his

friends, or the entertainment of an occasional audience. Then his book appears, entitled not Miscellaneous Poems, but Aslee

d the above few instances will give a sufficient indication of the pitfalls which lie in the way of the biblio