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

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СКАЧАТЬ such a man, so faint, so spiritless,

       So dull, so dead in look, so woe-begone—

      which he renders "Ainsi douleur! va-t'en!"

      The Abbé Gregoire affords another striking proof of the errors to which foreigners are liable when they decide on the language and customs of another country. The Abbé, in the excess of his philanthropy, to show to what dishonourable offices human nature is degraded, acquaints us that at London he observed a sign-board, proclaiming the master as tueur des punaises de sa majesté! Bug-destroyer to his majesty! This is, no doubt, the honest Mr. Tiffin, in the Strand; and the idea which must have occurred to the good Abbé was, that his majesty's bugs were hunted by the said destroyer, and taken by hand—and thus human nature was degraded!

      A French writer translates the Latin title of a treatise of Philo-Judæus Omnis bonus liber est, Every good man is a free man, by Tout livre est bon. It was well for him, observes Jortin, that he did not live within the reach of the Inquisition, which might have taken this as a reflection on the Index Expurgatorius.

      An English translator turned "Dieu défend l'adultère" into "God defends adultery."—Guthrie, in his translation of Du Halde, has "the twenty-sixth day of the new moon." The whole age of the moon is but twenty-eight days. The blunder arose from his mistaking the word neuvième (ninth) for nouvelle or neuve (new).

      The facetious Tom Brown committed a strange blunder in his translation of Gelli's Circe. The word Starne, not aware of its signification, he boldly rendered stares, probably from the similitude of sound; the succeeding translator more correctly discovered Starne to be red-legged partridges!

      In Charles II.'s reign a new collect was drawn, in which a new epithet was added to the king's title, that gave great offence, and occasioned great raillery. He was styled our most religious king. Whatever the signification of religious might be in the Latin word, as importing the sacredness of the king's person, yet in the English language it bore a signification that was no way applicable to the king. And he was asked by his familiar courtiers, what must the nation think when they heard him prayed for as their most religious king?—Literary blunders of this nature are frequently discovered in the versions of good classical scholars, who would make the English servilely bend to the Latin and Greek. Even Milton has been justly censured for his free use of Latinisms and Grecisms.

      The blunders of modern antiquaries on sepulchral monuments are numerous. One mistakes a lion at a knight's feet for a curled water dog; another could not distinguish censers in the hands of angels from fishing-nets; two angels at a lady's feet were counted as her two cherub-like babes; and another has mistaken a leopard and a hedgehog for a cat and a rat! In some of these cases, are the antiquaries or the sculptors most to be blamed?93

      A literary blunder of Thomas Warton is a specimen of the manner in which a man of genius may continue to blunder with infinite ingenuity. In an old romance he finds these lines, describing the duel of Saladin with Richard Cœur de Lion:—

      A Faucon brode in hande he bare, For he thought he wolde thare Have slayne Richard.

      He imagines this Faucon brode means a falcon bird, or a hawk, and that Saladin is represented with this bird on his fist to express his contempt of his adversary. He supports his conjecture by noticing a Gothic picture, supposed to be the subject of this duel, and also some old tapestry of heroes on horseback with hawks on their fists; he plunges into feudal times, when no gentleman appeared on horseback without his hawk. After all this curious erudition, the rough but skilful Ritson inhumanly triumphed by dissolving the magical fancies of the more elegant Warton, by explaining a Faucon brode to be nothing more than a broad faulchion, which, in a duel, was certainly more useful than a bird. The editor of the private reprint of Hentzner, on that writer's tradition respecting "the Kings of Denmark who reigned in England" buried in the Temple Church, metamorphosed the two Inns of Court, Gray's Inn and Lincoln's Inn, into the names of the Danish kings, Gresin and Lyconin.94

      Bayle supposes that Marcellus Palingenius, who wrote the poem entitled the Zodiac, the twelve books bearing the names of the signs, from this circumstance assumed the title of Poeta Stellatus. But it appears that this writer was an Italian and a native of Stellada, a town in the Ferrarese. It is probable that his birthplace originally produced the conceit of the title of his poem: it is a curious instance how critical conjecture may be led astray by its own ingenuity, when ignorant of the real fact.

      A LITERARY WIFE.

       Table of Contents

      Marriage is such a rabble rout;

       That those that are out, would fain get in;

       And those that are in, would fain get out.

      Chaucer.

      Having examined some literary blunders, we will now proceed to the subject of a literary wife, which may happen to prove one. A learned lady is to the taste of few. It is however matter of surprise, that several literary men should have felt such a want of taste in respect to "their soul's far dearer part," as Hector calls his Andromache. The wives of many men of letters have been dissolute, ill-humoured, slatternly, and have run into all the frivolities of the age. The wife of the learned Budæus was of a different character.

      How delightful is it when the mind of the female is so happily disposed, and so richly cultivated, as to participate in the literary avocations of her husband! It is then truly that the intercourse of the sexes becomes the most refined pleasure. What delight, for instance, must the great Budæus have tasted, even in those works which must have been for others a most dreadful labour! His wife left him nothing to desire. The frequent companion of his studies, she brought him the books he required to his desk; she collated passages, and transcribed quotations; the same genius, the same inclination, and the same ardour for literature, eminently appeared in those two fortunate persons. Far from withdrawing her husband from his studies, she was sedulous to animate him when he languished. Ever at his side, and ever assiduous; ever with some useful book in her hand, she acknowledged herself to be a most happy woman. Yet she did not neglect the education of eleven children. She and Budæus shared in the mutual cares they owed their progeny. Budæus was not insensible of his singular felicity. In one of his letters, he represents himself as married to two ladies; one of whom gave him boys and girls, the other was Philosophy, who produced books. He says that in his twelve first years, Philosophy had been less fruitful than marriage; he had produced less books than children; he had laboured more corporally than intellectually; but he hoped to make more books than men. "The soul (says he) will be productive in its turn; it will rise on the ruins of the body; a prolific virtue is not given at the same time to the bodily organs and the pen."

      The lady of Evelyn designed herself the frontispiece to his translation of Lucretius. She felt the same passion in her own breast which animated her husband's, who has written, with such various ingenuity. Of Baron Haller it is recorded that he inspired his wife and family with a taste for his different pursuits. They were usually employed in assisting his literary occupations; they transcribed manuscripts, consulted authors, gathered plants, and designed and coloured under his eye. What a delightful family picture has the younger Pliny given posterity in his letters! Of Calphurnia, his wife, he says, "Her affection to me has given her a turn to books; and my compositions, which she takes a pleasure in reading, and even getting by heart, are continually in her hands. How full of tender solicitude is СКАЧАТЬ