Curiosities of Literature (Vol. 1-3). Disraeli Isaac

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СКАЧАТЬ of Aaron's ephod, and the language which Eve first spoke. This writer is ridiculed in Ben Jonson's Comedies:—he is not without rivals even in the present day! Covarruvias, after others of his school, discovers that when male children are born they cry out with an A, being the first vowel of the word Adam, while the female infants prefer the letter E, in allusion to Eve; and we may add that, by the pinch of a negligent nurse, they may probably learn all their vowels. Of the pedantic triflings of commentators, a controversy among the Portuguese on the works of Camoens is not the least. Some of these profound critics, who affected great delicacy in the laws of epic poetry, pretended to be doubtful whether the poet had fixed on the right time for a king's dream; whether, said they, a king should have a propitious dream on his first going to bed or at the dawn of the following morning? No one seemed to be quite certain; they puzzled each other till the controversy closed in this felicitous manner, and satisfied both the night and the dawn critics. Barreto discovered that an accent on one of the words alluded to in the controversy would answer the purpose, and by making king Manuel's dream to take place at the dawn would restore Camoens to their good opinion, and preserve the dignity of the poet.

      Chevreau begins his History of the World in these words:—"Several learned men have examined in what season God created the world, though there could hardly be any season then, since there was no sun, no moon, nor stars. But as the world must have been created in one of the four seasons, this question has exercised the talents of the most curious, and opinions are various. Some say it was in the month of Nisan, that is, in the spring: others maintain that it was in the month of Tisri, which begins the civil year of the Jews, and that it was on the sixth day of this month, which answers to our September, that Adam and Eve were created, and that it was on a Friday, a little after four o'clock in the afternoon!" This is according to the Rabbinical notion of the eve of the Sabbath.

      The Irish antiquaries mention public libraries that were before the flood; and Paul Christian Ilsker, with profounder erudition, has given an exact catalogue of Adam's. Messieurs O'Flaherty, O'Connor, and O'Halloran, have most gravely recorded as authentic narrations the wildest legendary traditions; and more recently, to make confusion doubly confounded, others have built up what they call theoretical histories on these nursery tales. By which species of black art they contrive to prove that an Irishman is an Indian, and a Peruvian may be a Welshman, from certain emigrations which took place many centuries before Christ, and some about two centuries after the flood! Keating, in his "History of Ireland," starts a favourite hero in the giant Partholanus, who was descended from Japhet, and landed on the coast of Munster 14th May, in the year of the world 1987. This giant succeeded in his enterprise, but a domestic misfortune attended him among his Irish friends:—his wife exposed him to their laughter by her loose behaviour, and provoked him to such a degree that he killed two favourite greyhounds; and this the learned historian assures us was the first instance of female infidelity ever known in Ireland!

      The learned, not contented with Homer's poetical pre-eminence, make him the most authentic historian and most accurate geographer of antiquity, besides endowing him with all the arts and sciences to be found in our Encyclopædia. Even in surgery, a treatise has been written to show, by the variety of the wounds of his heroes, that he was a most scientific anatomist; and a military scholar has lately told us, that from him is derived all the science of the modern adjutant and quarter-master general; all the knowledge of tactics which we now possess; and that Xenophon, Epaminondas, Philip, and Alexander, owed all their warlike reputation to Homer!

      To return to pleasanter follies. Des Fontaines, the journalist, who had wit and malice, inserted the fragment of a letter which the poet Rousseau wrote to the younger Racine whilst he was at the Hague. These were the words: "I enjoy the conversation within these few days of my associates in Parnassus. Mr. Piron is an excellent antidote against melancholy; but"—&c. Des Fontaines maliciously stopped at this but. In the letter of Rousseau it was, "but unfortunately he departs soon." Piron was very sensibly affected at this equivocal but, and resolved to revenge himself by composing one hundred epigrams against the malignant critic. He had written sixty before Des Fontaines died: but of these only two attracted any notice.

      Towards the conclusion of the fifteenth century, Antonio Cornezano wrote a hundred different sonnets on one subject, "the eyes of his mistress!" to which possibly Shakspeare may allude, when Jaques describes a lover, with his

      Woeful ballad,

       Made to his mistress' eyebrow.

      Not inferior to this ingenious trifler is Nicholas Franco, well known in Italian literature, who employed himself in writing two hundred and eighteen satiric sonnets, chiefly on the famous Peter Aretin. This lampooner had the honour of being hanged at Rome for his defamatory publications. In the same class are to be placed two other writers. Brebeuf, who wrote one hundred and fifty epigrams against a painted lady. Another wit, desirous of emulating him, and for a literary bravado, continued the same subject, and pointed at this unfortunate fair three hundred more, without once repeating the thoughts of Brebeuf! There is a collection of poems called "La PUCE des grands jours de Poitiers." "The FLEA of the carnival of Poietiers." These poems were begun by the learned Pasquier, who edited the collection, upon a FLEA which was found one morning in the bosom of the famous Catherine des Roches!

      Not long ago, a Mr. and Mrs. Bilderdyk, in Flanders, published poems under the whimsical title of "White and Red."—His own poems were called white, from the colour of his hair; and those of his lady red, in allusion to the colour of the rose. The idea must be Flemish!

      Gildon, in his "Laws of Poetry," commenting on this line of the Duke of Buckingham's "Essay on Poetry,"

      Nature's chief masterpiece is writing well:

      very profoundly informs his readers "That what is here said has not the least regard to the penmanship, that is, to the fairness or badness of the handwriting," and proceeds throughout a whole page, with a panegyric on a fine handwriting! The stupidity of dulness seems to have at times great claims to originality!

      Littleton, the author of the Latin and English Dictionary, seems to have indulged his favourite propensity to punning so far as even to introduce a pun in the grave and elaborate work of a Lexicon. A story has been raised to account for it, and it has been ascribed to the impatient interjection of the lexicographer to his scribe, who, taking no offence at the peevishness of his master, put it down in the Dictionary. The article alluded to is, "Concurro, to run with others; to run together; to come together; to fall foul of one another; to Con-cur, to Con-dog."

      Mr. Todd, in his Dictionary, has laboured to show the "inaccuracy of this pretended narrative." Yet a similar blunder appears to have happened to Ash. Johnson, while composing his Dictionary, sent a note to the Gentleman's Magazine to inquire the etymology of the word curmudgeon. Having obtained the information, he records in his work the obligation to an anonymous letter-writer. "Curmudgeon, a vicious way of pronouncing cœur méchant. An unknown correspondent." Ash copied the word into his dictionary in this manner: "Curmudgeon: from the French cœur unknown; and méchant, a correspondent." This singular negligence ought to be placed in the class of our literary blunders; these form a pair of lexicographical anecdotes.

      Two singular literary follies have been practised on Milton. There is a prose version of his "Paradise Lost," which was innocently translated from the French version of his epic! One Green published a specimen of a new version of the "Paradise Lost" into blank verse! For this purpose he has utterly ruined the harmony of Milton's cadences, by what he conceived to be "bringing that amazing work somewhat nearer the summit of perfection."

      A French author, when his book had been received by the French Academy, had the portrait of Cardinal Richelieu engraved on his title-page, encircled by a crown of forty rays, in each СКАЧАТЬ