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

This was a brilliant stroke of imagination, for who would expect to find a colliery near Maidenhead?

Mr. Sala, writing to Notes and Queries (Third Series, i. 365), says: ``Altogether I have long since arrived at the conclusion that there are more `devils' in a printing office than are dreamt of in our philosophy— the blunder fiends to wit—ever busy in peppering the `formes' with errors which defy the minutest revisions of reader, author, sub-editor, and editor.'' Mr. Sala gives an instance which occurred to himself. He wrote that Dr. Livingstone wore a cap with a tarnished gold lace band; but the printer altered the word tarnished into famished, to the serious confusion of the passage.

Some of the most amusing blunders occur by the change of a single letter. Thus, in an account of the danger to an express train by a cow getting on the line in front, the reporter was made to say that as the safest course under the circumstances the engine driver ``put on full steam, dashed up against the cow, and literally cut it into calves.'' A short time ago an account was given in an address of the early struggles of an eminent portrait painter, and the statement appeared in print that, working at the easel from eight o'clock in the morning till eight o'clock at night, the artist ``only lay down on the hearthrug for rest and refreshment between the visits of his sisters.'' This is not so bad, however, as the report that ``a bride was accompanied to the altar by tight bridesmaids.'' A very odd blunder occurred in the World of Oct. 6th, 1886, one which was so odd that the editor thought it worthy of notice by himself in a subsequent number. The paragraph in which the misprint occurred related to the filling up of the vicarage of St. Mary's, Islington, which it was thought had been unduly delayed. The trustees in whose gift the living is were informed that if they had a difficulty in finding a clergyman of the proper complexion of low churchism there were still Venns in Kent. Here the natural confusion of the letters u and n came into play, and as the paragraph was printed it appeared that a Venus of Kent was recommended for the vicarage of St. Mary's.

The compositor who set up the account of a public welcome to a famous orator must have been fresh from the study of Porson's Catechism of the Swinish Multitude when he set up the damaging statement that ``the crowd rent the air with their snouts.''

Sometimes the blunder consists not in the misprint of a letter, but in a mere transposition, as when an eminent herald and antiquary was dubbed Rogue Croix instead of Rouge Croix. Sometimes a new but appropriate word results by the thrusting into a recognised word of a redundant letter, as when a man died from eating too much goose the verdict was said to have been ``death from stuffocation.''

Many of these blunders, although amusing to the public, cannot have been altogether agreeable to the subjects of them. Mr. Justice Wightman could not have been pleased to see himself described as Mr. Justice Nightman; and the right reverend prelate who was stated ``to be highly pleased with some ecclesiastical iniquities shown to him'' must have been considerably scandalised.

Professor Hales is very much of the opinion of Mr. Sala respecting the labours of the ``blunder fiend,'' and he sent an amusing letter to the Athen<ae>um, in which he pointed out a curious misprint in one of his own books. As the contents of the letter is very much to the point, readers will perhaps not object to seeing it transferred in its entirety to these pages:—

``The humour of compositors is apt to be imperfectly appreciated by authors, because it rather interferes with what the author wishes to say, although it may often say something better. But there is no reason why the general reader should not thoroughly enjoy it. Certainly it ought to be more generously recognised than it is. So many persons at present think of it as merely accidental and fortuitous, as if there was no mind in it, as if all the excellent things loosely described as errata, all the curios<ae> felicitates of the setter-up of texts, were casual blunders. Such a view reminds one of the way in which the last- century critics used to speak of Shakspere —the critics who give him no credit for design or selection, but thought that somehow or other he stumbled into greatness. However, I propose now not to attempt the defence, or, what might be worth the effort, the analysis of this species of Wit, but only to give what seemed an admirable instance of it.

``In a note to the word limboes in the Clarendon Press edition of Milton's Areopagitica, I quoted from Nares's Glossary a list of the various limbi believed in by the `old schoolmen,' and No. 2 was `a limbus patrum where the fathers of the Church, saints, and martyrs, awaited the general resurrection.' Will any one say it was not a stroke of genius in some printing-office humourist to alter the last word into `_in_surrection'?

``Like all good wit, this change is so suggestive. It raises up a cloud of new ideas, and reduces the hearer to a delightful confusion. How strangely it revises all our popular notions! If even beyond the grave the great problems that keep men here restless and murmuring are not solved! If even there the rebellious spirit is not quieted! Nay, if those whom we think of as having won peace for themselves in this world, do in that join the malcontents, and are each one biding their time—

<gr <w!>s t<h!>n Di<o!>s turann<i'>d' <e'>kp<<e'>rswn b<i'>a>.

``May we not conceive this bold jester, if haply he were a stonemason, chiselling on some tombstone `_In_surgam'?''

Allusion has already been made to the persistency of misprints and the difficulty of curing them; but one of the most curious instances of this may be found in a line of Byron's beautiful apostrophe to the ocean in Childe Harold (Canto iv.). The one hundred and eighty-second stanza is usually printed:—

``Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee—
   Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they?
   Thy waters wasted them while they were free,
   And many a tyrant since . . .''

Not many years ago a critic, asking himself the question when the waters wasted these countries, began to suspect a misprint, and on consulting the manuscript, it was found that he was right. The blunder, which had escaped Byron's own eyes, was corrected, and the third line was printed as originally written:—

``Thy waters wash'd them power while they were free.

The carelessness of printers seems to hare culminated in their production of the Scriptures. The old editions of the Bible swarm with blunders, and some of them were supposed to have been made intentionally. It was said that the printer Field received <Pd>1500 from the Independents as a bribe to corrupt a text which might sanction their practice of lay- ordination, and in Acts vi. 3 the word ye is substituted for we in several of his editions of the Bible. The verse reads: ``Wherefore, brethren, look ye out among ye seven men of honesr report, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom, whom ye may appoint over this business.'' To such forgeries Butler refers in the lines:—

``Religion spawn'd a various rout
   Of petulant capricious sects,
   The maggots of corrupted texts.''
               Hudibras, Part III., Canto 2.

Dr. Grey, in his notes on this passage, brings forward the charge against Field, and quotes Wotton's Visitation Sermon (1706) in support of it. He also quotes from Cowley's Puritan and Papist as to the practice of corrupting texts:—

``They a bold pow'r o'er sacred Scriptures take,
Blot out some clauses and some new ones make.''

Pope Sixtus the Fifth's Vulgate so swarmed with errors that paper had to be pasted over some of the erroneous passages, and the public naturally laughed at the bull prefixed to the first volume which excommunicated any printer who altered the text. This was all the more annoying to the Pope, as he had intended the edition to be specially free from errors, and to attain that end had seen all the proofs himself. Some years ago a copy of this book was sold in France for 1210 francs.

The King's Printers, Robert Barker and Martin Lucas, in the reign of Charles I. were not excommunicated, but, what perhaps they liked less, were fined <Pd>300 by the Court of High Commission for leaving the not out of the seventh commandment in an edition of the Bible printed in 1631. Although this story has been frequently quoted it has been disbelieved, and the great bibliographer of Bibles, the late Mr. George Offer, asserted that he and his father searched diligently for it, and could not find it. Now, six copies are known to exist. The late Mr. Henry Stevens gives a most interesting account of the first discovery of the book in his Recollections of Mr. James Lennox. He writes:—

``Mr. Lennox was so strict an observer of the Sabbath that I never knew of his writing a business letter on Sunday but once. In 1855, while he was staying at Hotel Meurice in Paris, there occurred to me the opportunity one Saturday afternoon, June 16th, of identifying the long lost octavo Bible of 1631 with the negative omitted in the seventh commandment, and purchasing it for fifty guineas. No other copy was then known, and the possessor required an immediate answer. However, I raised some points of inquiry, and obtained permission to hold the little sinner and give the answer on Monday. By that evening's post I wrote to Mr. Lennox, and pressed for an immediate reply, suggesting that this prodigal though he returned on Sunday should be bound. Monday brought a letter `to buy it,' very short, but tender as a fatted calf. On June 21st I exhibited it at a full meeting of the Society of Antiquaries of London, at the same time nicknaming it The Wicked Bible, a name that stuck to it ever since, though six copies are now known. . . . Lord Macaulay was present at the meeting, but did not at first credit the genuineness of the typographical error. Lord Stanhope, however, on borrowing the volume, convinced him that it was the true wicked error.''

Curiously enough, when Mr. Stevens took the Bible home on Saturday night he overhauled his pile of octavo Bibles, and found an imperfect duplicate of the supposed unique ``wicked'' Bible. When the owner came for his book on Monday morning he was shown the duplicate, and agreed, as his copy was not unique, to take <Pd>25 for it. The imperfect copy was sold to the British Museum for eighteen guineas, and Mr. Winter Jones was actually so fortunate as to obtain subsequently the missing twenty-three leaves. A third copy came into the hands of Mr. Francis Fry, of Bristol, who sold it to Dr. Bandinel for the Bodleian Library. A fourth copy is in the Euing Library, at Glasgow; a fifth fell into the hands of Mr. Henry J. Atkinson, of Gunnersbury,in 1883; and a sixth copy was picked up in Ireland by a gentleman of Coventry In 1884.

In a Bible of 1634 the first verse of the 14th Psalm is printed as ``The fool hath said in his heart there is God''; and in another Bible of 1653 worldly takes the place of godly, and reads, ``In order that all the world should esteem the means of arriving at worldly riches.''

If Field was not a knave, as hinted above, he was singularly unfortunate in his blunders; for in another of his Bibles he also omitted the negative in an important passage, and printed I Corinthians vi. 9 as, ``Know ye not that the unrighteous shall inherit the kingdom of God?''

It is recorded that a printer's widow in Germany once tampered with the purity of the text of a Bible printed in her house, for which crime she was burned to death. She arose in the night, when all the workmen were in bed, and going to the ``forme'' entirely changed the meaning of a text which particularly offended her. The text was Gen. iii. 16 (``Thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee'').

This story does not rest on a very firm foundation, and as the recorder does not mention the date of the occurrence, it must be taken by the reader for what it is worth. The following incident, vouched for by a well-known author, is, however, very similar. James Silk Buckingham relates the following curious anecdote in his Autobiography:—

``While working at the Clarendon Printing Office a story was current among the men, and generally believed to be authentic, to the following effect. Some of the gay young students of the University, who loved a practical joke, had made themselves sufficiently familiar with the manner in which the types are fixed in certain formes and laid on the press, and with the mode of opening such formes for correction when required; and when the sheet containing the Marriage Service was about to be worked off, as finally corrected, they unlocked the forme, took out a single letter v, and substituted in its place the letter k, thus converting the word live into like. The result was that, when the sheets were printed, that part of the service which rendered the bond irrevocable, was so changed as to make it easily dissolved—as the altered passage now read as follows:—The minister asking the bridegroom, `Wilt thou have this woman to be thy wedded wife, to live together after God's ordinance in the holy state of matrimony? Wilt thou love her, comfort her, honour, and keep her in sickness and in health; and forsaking all other, keep thee only unto her, so long as ye both shall like?' To which the man shall answer, `I will.' The same change was made in the question put to the bride.''

If the culprits who left out a word deserved to be heavily mulcted in damages, it is difficult to calculate the liability of those who left out whole verses. When Archbishop Ussher was hastening to preach at Paul's Cross, he went into a shop to purchase a Bible, and on turning over the pages for his text found it was omitted.

Andrew Anderson, a careless, faulty printer in Edinburgh, obtained a monopoly as king's printer, which was exercised on his death in 1679 by his widow. The productions of her press became worse and worse, and her Bibles were a standing disgrace to the country. Robert Chambers, in his Domestic Annals of Scotland, quotes the following specimen from an edition of 1705: ``Whyshouldit- bethougtathingincredi ble w<tS> you, y<tS> God should raise the dead?'' Even this miserable blundering could not have been much worse than the Pearl Bible with six thousand errata mentioned by Isaac Disraeli.

The first edition of the English Scriptures printed in Ireland was published at Belfast in 1716, and is notorious for an error in Isaiah. Sin no more is printed Sin on more. In the following year was published at Oxford the well-known Vinegar Bible, which takes its name from a blunder in the running title of the twentieth chapter of St. Luke's Gospel, where it reads ``The parable of the vinegar,'' instead of ``The parable of the vineyard.'' In a Cambridge Prayer Book of 1778 the thirtieth verse of Psalm cv. is travestied as follows: ``Their land brought forth frogs, yea seven in their king's chambers.'' An Oxford Bible of 1792 names St. Philip instead of St. Peter as the disciple who should deny Christ (Luke xxii. 34); and in an Oxford New Testament of 1864 we read, ``Rejoice, and be exceeding clad'' (Matt. v. 12). To be impartial, however, it is necessary to mention a Cambridge Bible of 1831, where Psalm cxix. 93 appears as ``I will never forgive thy precepts.'' A Bible printed at Edinburgh in 1823 contains a curious misprint caused by a likeness in pronunciation of two words, Esther being printed for Easter, ``Intending after Esther to bring him forth to the people'' (Acts xii. 4). A misprint of the old hundredth Psalm (do well for do dwell) in the Prayer Book might perhaps be considered as an improvement,—

``All people who on earth do well.''

Errors are specially frequent in figures, often caused by the way in which the characters are cut. The aim of the founder seems to be to make them as much alike as possible, so that it frequently requires a keen eye to discover the difference between a 3 and a 5. In one of Chernac's Mathematical Tables a line fell out before going to press, and instead of being replaced at the bottom of the page it was put in at the top, thus causing twenty-six errors. Besides these, however, only ten errors have been found in the whole work of 1020 pages, all full of figures. Vieta's Canon Mathematicus (1579) is of great rarity, from the author being discontented with the misprints that had escaped his notice, and on that account withdrawing or repurchasing all the copies he could meet with. Some mathematicians, to ensure accuracy, have made their calculations with the types in their own hands. In the Imperial Dictionary of Universal Biography there is a misprint in a date which confuses a whole article. William Ayrton, musical critic, is said to have been born in London about 1781, but curiously enough his father is reported to have been born three years afterwards (1784); and still more odd, that father was appointed gentleman of the Chapel Royal in 1764, twenty years before he is stated to have been born.

In connection with figures may be mentioned the terrible confusion which is caused by the simple dropping out of a decimal point. Thus a passage in which 6.36 is referred to naturally becomes utter nonsense when 636 is printed instead. Such a misprint is as bad as the blunder of the French compositor, who, having to set up a passage referring to Captain Cook, turned de Cook into de 600 kilos. An amusing blunder was quoted a few years ago from a German paper where the writer, referring to Prince Bismarck's endeavours to keep on good terms with all the Powers, was made to say, ``Prince Bismarck is trying to keep up honest and straightforward relations with all the girls.'' This blunder was caused by the substitution of the word M<a:>dchen (girls) for M<a:>chten (powers).

The French have always been interested in misprints, and they have registered a considerable number. One of the happiest is that one which was caused by Malherbe's bad writing, and induced him to adopt the misprint in his verse in place of that which he had originally written. The lines, written on a daughter of Du Perrier named Rosette, now stand thus:—

``Mais elle <e'>tait du monde o<u!> les plus belles choses
 Ont le pire destin,
 Et rose, elle a v<e'>cu ce que vivent les roses
 L'espace d'un matin.''

Malherbe had written,—

``Et Rosette a v<e'>cu ce que vivent les roses;''

but forgetting ``to cross his tees'' the compositor made the fortunate blunder of printing rose elle, which so pleased the author that he let it stand, and modified the following lines in accordance with the printer's improvement.

Rabelais nearly got into trouble by a blunder of his printer, who in several places set up asne for <a^>me. A council met at the Sorbonne to consider the case against him, and the doctors formally denounced Rabelais to Francis I., and requested permission to prosecute him for heresy; but the king after consideration refused to give the permission. Rabelais then laughed at his accusers for founding a charge of heresy against him on a printer's blunder, but there were strong suspicions that the misprints were intentional.

These misprints are styled by the French coquilles, a word whose derivation M. Boutney, author of Dictionnaire de l'Argot des Typographes, is unable to explain after twenty years' search. A number of Longman's Magazine contains an article on these coquilles, in which very many amusing blunders are quoted. One of these gave rise to a pun which is so excellent that it is impossible to resist the temptation of transferring the anecdote from those pages to these:—

``In the Rue Richelieu there is a statue of Corneille holding a roll in his hand, on which are inscribed the titles of his principal works. The task of incising these names it appears had been given to an illiterate young apprentice, who thought proper to spell avare with two r's. A wit, observing this, remarked pleasantly, Tiens, voil<a!> an avare qui a un air misanthrope (un r mis en trop).''

In a newspaper account of Mr. Gladstone's religious views the word Anglican is travestied as Afghan, with the following curious result: ``There is no form of faith in existence more effectually tenacious than the Afghan form, which asserts the full catholicity of that branch church whose charter is the English Church Prayer Book.''

In the diary of John Hunter, of Craigcrook, it is recorded that at one of the meetings between the diarist, Leigh Hunt, and Carlyle, ``Hunt gave us some capital specimens of absurd errors of the press committed by printers from his copy. One very good one occurs in a paper, where he had said, `he had a liking for coffee because it always reminded him of the Arabian Nights,' though not mentioned there, adding, `as smoking does for the same reason.' This was converted into the following oracular words: `As sucking does for the snow season'! He could not find it in his heart to correct this, and thus it stands as a theme for the profound speculations of the commentators.''

A very slight misprint will make a great difference; sometimes an unintelliglble word is produced, but sometimes the mere transposition of a letter will make a word exactly opposite in its meaning to the original, as unite for untie. In Jeremy Taylor's XXV. Sermons preached at Golden Grove: Being for the Winter half-year (London, 1653), p. 247, we read, ``It may help to unite the charm,'' whereas the author wished to say ``untie.''

The title of Cobbett's Horse-hoeing
Husbandry was easily turned into Horse-shoeing
Husbandry, that of the Holy Grail into
Holy Gruel, and Layamon's Brut into
Layamon's Brat.

A local paper, reporting the proceedings at the Bath meeting of the British Asso{sic} ciation, affirmed that an eminent chemist had ``not been able to find any fluidity in the Bath waters.'' Fluorine was meant. It was also stated that a geologist asserted that ``the bones found in the submerged forests of Devonshire were closely representative of the British farmer.'' The last word should have been fauna.

The strife of tongs is suggestive of a more serious battle than that of talk only; and the compositor who set up Portia's speech—

``. . . young Alcides, when he did redeem
The virgin tribute paid by howling Troy''
(Merchant of Venice, act iii., sc. 2),

and turned the last words into howling Tory, must have been a rabid politician.

The transposition of ``He kissed her under the silent stars'' into ``He kicked her under the cellar stairs'' looks rather too good to be true, and it cannot be vouched for; but the title ``Microscopic Character of the Virtuous Rocks of Montana'' is a genuine misprint for vitreous, as is also ``Buddha's perfect uselessness'' for ``Buddha's perfect sinlessness.'' It is rather startling to find a quotation from the Essay on Man introduced by the words ``as the Pope says,'' or to find the famous painter Old Crome styled an ``old Crone.''

A most amusing instance of a misreading may be mentioned here, although it is not a literary blunder. A certain black cat was named Mephistopheles a name which greatly puzzled the little girl who played with the cat, so she very sensibly set to work to reduce the name to a form which she could understand, and she arrived at ``Miss Pack-of-fleas.''

Sometimes a ludicrous blunder may be made by the mere closing up of two words; thus the orator who spoke of our ``grand Mother Church'' had his remark turned into a joke when it was printed as ``grandmother Church.'' A still worse blunder was made in an obituary notice of a well-known congressman in an American paper, where the reference to his ``gentle, manly spirit'' was turned into ``gentlemanly spirit.''

Misprints are very irritating to most authors, but some can afford to make fun of the trouble; thus Hood's amusing lines are probably founded upon some blunder that actually occurred:—

``But it is frightful to think
     What nonsense sometimes
   They make of one's sense,
     And what's worse, of one's rhymes.

``It was only last week,
 In my ode upon Spring,
 Which I meant to have made
 A most beautiful thing,

``When I talked of the dew-drops
     From freshly-blown roses,
   The nasty things made it
     From freshly-blown noses.

``And again, when, to please
     An old aunt, I had tried
   To commemorate some saint
     Of her clique who had died,

``I said he had taken up
     In heaven his position,
   And they put it—he'd taken
     Up to heaven his physician.''

Henry Stephens (Estienne), the learned printer, made a joke over a misprint. The word febris was printed with the diphthong <oe>, so Stephens excused himself by saying in the errata that ``le chalcographe a fait une fi<e!>vre longue (f<oe>brem) quoique une fi<e!>vre courte (febrem) soit moins dangereux.''

Allusion has already been made in the first chapter to Professor Skeat's ghost words. Most of these have arisen from misreadings or misprints, and two extraordinary instances may be noted here. The purely modern phrase ``look sharp'' was supposed to have been used in the time of Chaucer, because ``loke schappe'' (see that you form, etc.) of the manuscript was printed ``loke scharpe.'' In the other instance the scribe wrote yn for m, and thus he turned ``chek matyde'' into ``chek yn a tyde.''[12]

[12] Philol. Soc. Trans. 1885-7, pp. 368-9.

In the Academy for Feb. 25th, 1888, Dr. Skeat explained another discovery of his of the same kind, by which he is able to correct a time-honoured blunder in English literature:—

``CAMBRIDGE: Feb. 14, 1888.

``When I explained, in the Academy for January 7 (p. 9), that the word `Herenus ' is simply a mistake for `Herines,' i.e., the furies (such being the Middle-English form of Erinnyes), I did not expect that I should so soon light upon another singular perversion of the same word.

``In Chaucer's Works, ed. 1561, fol. 322, back, there is a miserable poem, of much later date than that of Chaucer's death, entitled `The Remedie of Love.' The twelfth stanza begins thus:

`Come hither, thou Hermes, and ye furies all
Which fer been under us, nigh the nether pole,
Where Pluto reigneth,' etc.

It is clear that `Hermes' is a scribal error for `Herines,' and that the scribe has added `thou' out of his own head, to keep `Hermes' company. The context bears this out; for the author utterly rejects the inspiration of the Muses in the preceding stanza, and proceeds to invoke furies, harpies, and, to use his own expression, `all this lothsome sort.' Many of the lines almost defy scansion, so that no help is to be got from observing the run of the lines. Nevertheless, this fresh instance of the occurrence of `Herines' much assists my argument; all the more so, as it appears in a disguised shape. ``WALTER W. SKEAT.''

Sometimes a misprint is intentional, as in the following instance. At the beginning of the century the Courrier des Pays Bas was bought by some young men, who changed its politics, but kept on the editor. The motto of the paper was from Horace:

``Est modus in rebus,''

and the editor, wishing to let his friends at a distance know that things were not going on quite well between him and his proprietors, printed this motto as,—

``Est nodus in rebus.''

This was continued for three weeks before it was discovered and corrected by the persons concerned.

Another kind of misprint which we see occasionally is the misplacement of some lines of type. This may easily occur when the formes are being locked, and the result is naturally nonsense that much confuses the reader. Probably the finest instance of this misplacement occurred some years ago in an edition of Men of the Time (1856), where the entry relating to Samuel Wilberforce, Bishop of Oxford, got mixed up with that of Robert Owen, the Socialist, with the result that the bishop was stated to be ``a confirmed sceptic as regards revealed religion, but a believer in Spiritualism.'' It was this kind of blunder which suggested the formation of cross- readings, that were once very popular.

CHAPTER VIL

SCHOOLBOYS' BLUNDERS.

THE blunders of the examined form a fruitful source of amusement for us all, and many comical instances have been published. The mistakes which are constantly occurring must naturally be innumerable, but only a few of them rise to the dignity of a blunder. If it be difficult to define a blunder, probably the best illustration of what it is will be found in the answers of the boys under examination. All classes of blunders may be found among these. There are those which show confusion of knowledge, and those which exhibit an insight into the heart of the matter while blundering in the form. Two very good examples occur to one's mind, but it is to be feared that they owe their origin to some keen spirit of mature years. ``What is Faith?—The quality by which we are enabled to believe that which we know is untrue.'' Surely this must have emanated from a wit! Again, the whole Homeric question is condensed into the following answer: ``Some people say that the Homeric poems were not written by Homer, but by another man of the same name.'' If this is a blunder, who would not wish to blunder so?

A large class of schoolboys' blunders consist in a confusion of words somewhat alike in sound, a confusion that is apt to follow some of us through life. ``Matins'' has been mixed up with ``pattens,'' and described as something to wear on the feet. Nonconformists are said to be persons who cannot form anything, and a tartan is assumed to be an inhabitant of Tartary. The gods are believed by one boy to live on nectarines, and by another to imbibe ammonia. The same desire to make an unintelligible word express a meaning which has caused the recognised but absurd spelling of sovereign (more wisely spelt sovran by Milton) shows itself in the form ``Tea-trarck'' explained as the title of Herod given to him because he invented or was fond of tea.[13] A still finer confusion of ideas is to be found in an answer reported by Miss Graham in the University Correspondent: ``Esau was a man who wrote fables, and who sold the copyright to a publisher for a bottle of potash.''

[13] Cornhill Magazine, June 1888, pp. 619-28.

The following etymological guesses are not so good, but they are worthy of registration. One boy described a blackguard as ``one who has been a shoeblack,'' while another thought he was ``a man dressed in black.'' ``Polite'' is said to be derived from ``Pole,'' owing to the affability of the Polish race. ``Heathen'' means ``covered with heath''; but this explanation is commonplace when compared with the brilliant guess—``Heathen, from Latin `h<ae>thum,' faith, and `en,' not.''

The boy who explained the meaning of the words fort and fortress must have had rather vague ideas as to masculine and feminine nouns. He wrote: ``A fort is a place to put men in, and a fortress a place to put women in.''

The little book entitled English as she is Taught, which contains a considerable number of genuine answers to examination questions given in American schools, with a Commentary by Mark Twain, is full of amusing matter. A large proportion of these answers are of a similar character to those just enumerated, blunders which have arisen from a confusion caused by similarity of sound in the various words, thus, ``In Austria the principal occupation is gathering Austrich feathers.'' The boy who propounded this evidently had much of the stock in trade required for the popular etymologist. ``Ireland is called the Emigrant Isle because it is so beautiful and green.'' ``Gorilla warfare was where men rode on gorillas.'' ``The Puritans found an insane asylum in the wilds of America.''

Some of the answers are so funny that it is almost impossible to guess at the train of thought which elicited them, as, ``Climate lasts all the time, and weather only a few days.'' ``Sanscrit is not used so much as it used to be, as it went out of use 1500 B.C.'' The boy who affirmed that ``The imports of a country are the things that are paid for; the exports are the things that are not,'' did not put the Theory of Exchange in very clear form.

The knowledge of physiology and of medical subjects exhibited by some of the examined is very amusing. One boy discovered a new organ of the body called a chrone: ``He had a chronic disease— something the matter with the chrone.'' Another had a strange notion of how to spell craniology, for he wrote ``Chonology is the science of the brane.'' But best of all is the knowledge of the origin of Bright's disease, shown by the boy who affirms that ``John Bright is noted for an incurable disease.''

Much of the blundering of the examined must be traced to the absurd questions of the examiners—questions which, as Mark Twain says, ``would oversize nearly anybody's knowledge.'' And the wish which every examinee has to bring in some subject which he supposes himself to know is perceptible in many answers. The date 1492 seems to be impressed upon every American child's memory, and he cannot rest until he has associated it with some fact, so we learn that George Washington was born in 1492, that St. Bartholomew was massacred in that year, that ``the Brittains were the Saxons who entered England in 1492 under Julius C<ae>sar,'' and, to cap all, that the earth is 1492 miles in circumference.

Many of the best-known examination jokes are associated with Scriptural characters. One of the best of these, if also one of the best known, is that of the man who, paraphrasing the parable of the Good Samaritan, and quoting his words to the innkeeper, ``When I come again I will repay you,'' added, ``This he said knowing that he should see his face again no more.''

A School Board boy, competing for one of the Peek prizes, carried this confusion of widely different events even farther. He had to write a short biography of Jonah, and he produced the following: ``He was the father of Lot, and had two wives. One was called Ishmale and the other Hagher; he kept one at home, and he turned the other into the dessert, when she became a pillow of salt in the daytime and a pillow of fire at night.'' The sketch of Moses is equally unhistoric: ``Mosses was an Egyptian. He lived in an ark made of bullrushes, and he kept a golden calf and worshipped braizen snakes, and et nothing but kwales and manna for forty years. He was caught by the hair of his head, while riding under the bough of a tree, and he was killed by his son Absalom as he was hanging from the bough.'' But the ignorance of the schoolboy was quite equalled by the undergraduate who was asked ``Who was the first king of Israel?'' and was so fortunate as to stumble on the name of Saul. Finding by the face of the examiner that he had hit upon the right answer, he added confidentially, ``Saul, also called Paul.''

The American child, however, managed to cover a larger space of time in his confusion when he said, ``Elijah was a good man, who went up to heaven without dying, and threw his cloak down for Queen Elizabeth to step over.''

A boy was asked in an examination, ``What did Moses do with the tabernacle?'' and he promptly answered, ``He chucked it out of the camp.'' The scandalised examiner asked the boy what he meant, and was told that it was so stated in the Bible. On being challenged for the verse, the boy at once repeated ``And Moses took the tabernacle and pitched it without the camp'' (Exod. xxxiii. 7).

The book might be filled with extraordinary instances of school translation, but room must be found for one beautiful specimen quoted by Moore in his Diary. A boy having to translate ``they ascended by ladders'' into Latin, turned out this, ``ascendebant per adolescentiores'' (the comparative degree of lad, i.e., ladder).

The late Mr. Barrett, Musical Examiner to the Society of Arts, gave some curious instances of blundering in his report on the Examinations of 1887, which is printed in the Programme of the Society's Examinations for 1888:—

``There were occasional indications that the terms were misunderstood. `Presto' signifies `turn over,' `Lento' `with style.' `Staccato' was said to mean `stick on the notes,' or `notes struck and at once raised.'

``The names of composers in order of time were generally correctly done, but the particulars concerning the musicians were rather startling. Thus Purcell was said to have written, among other things, an opera called Ebdon and Eneas; one stated that he was born 1543 and died 1595, probably confusing him with Tallis, that he wrote masses and reformed the church music; another that he was the organist of King's College Chapel, and wrote madrigals. One stated that he was born 1568 and died 1695; another, not knowing that he had so long passed the allotted period of man's existence, gave his dates 1693, 1685, thus giving him no limit of existence at all. One said he was a German, born somewhere in the nineteenth century, which statement another confirmed by giving his dates as 1817-1846; and, further, credited him with the composition of The Woman of Samaria, and as having transposed plain- song from tenor to bass. Bach is said to have been the founder of the `Thames School Lipsic,' the composer of the Seasons, the celebrated writer of opera comique, born 16—, and having gone through an operation for one of his fingers, turned his attention to composition, wrote operas, and, lastly, that he was born in 1756, and died 1880, and that his fame rests on his passions.

``The facts about Handel are pretty correct; but we find that Weber wrote Parsifal, The Flying Dutchman, Der Ring der Nibulengon. His dates are 1813-1883. Mendelssohn was born 1770, died 1827 (Beethoven's dates), studied under Hadyn (sic), and that he composed many operas. Gounod is said to be `a rather modern musician'; he wrote Othello, Three Holy Children, besides Faust and other works. Among the names given as the composer of Nozze di Figaro are Donizetti, William Sterndale Bennett, Gunod, and Sir Mickall Costa. The particulars concerning the real composer are equally interesting. (1) His name is spelt Mozzart, Mosarde, etc. (2) He was a well-known Italian, wrote Medea, and others. (3) His first opera was Idumea, or Idomeo. (4) He composed Lieder ohne worte, Don Pasquale, Don Govianna, the Zauberfloat, Feuges, and his Requiem is the crowning glory of his `marvellious carere.' (5) He was a German, `born 1756, at a very early age.' If the dates given by another writer be true (born 1795, died 1659), it is certain that he must have died before he was born.''

Mr. Barrett again reported in 1889 some of the strange opinions of those who came to him to be examined:—

``The answers to the question `Who was Rossini? What influence did he exercise over the art of music in his time?' brought to light much curious and interesting intelligence. His nationality was various. He was `a German by birth, but was born at Pesaro in Italy'; `he was born in 1670 and died 1826'; he was a `Frenchman,' `a noted writer of the French,' the place of nativity was `Pizzarro in Genoa'; he was `an Italian, and made people feel drunk with the sparke and richness of his melody'; he composed Oberon, Don Giovanni; Der Fri<e:>schutz, and Stabet Matar. He was `an accomplished writer of violin music and produced some of the prettiest melodies'; it is `to him we owe the extension of chords struck together in ar peggio'; he was `the founder of some institution or another'; `the great aim of his life was to make the music he wrote an interpretation of the words it was set to'; he `broke many of the laws of music'; he `considerable altered the stage'; he `was noted for using many instruments not invented before'; in his `composition he used the chromatic scale very much, and goes very deep in harmony'; he `was the first taking up the style, and therefore to make a great change in music'; he was `the cause of much censure and bickering through his writings'; he `promoted a less strict mode of writing and other beneficial things'; and, finally, `Giachono Rossini was born at Pezarro in 1792. In the year 1774 there was war raging in Paris between the Gluckists and Piccinists. Gluck wanted to do away with the old restraint of the Italian aria, and improve opera from a dramatic point of view. Piccini remained true to the old Italian style, and Rossini helped him to carry it on still further by his operas, Tancredi, William Tell, and Dorma del Lago.' ''

The child who gave the following brilliant answer to the question, ``What was the character of Queen Mary?'' must have suffered herself from the troubles supposed to be connected with the possession of a stepmother: ``She was wilful as a girl and cruel as a woman, but'' (adds the pupil) ``what can you expect from any one who had had five stepmothers?''

The greatest confusion among the examined is usually to be found in the answers to historical and geographical questions. All that one boy knew about Nelson was that he ``was buried in St. Paul's Cathedral amid the groans of a dying nation.'' The student who mixed up Oliver Cromwell with Thomas Cromwell's master Wolsey produced this strange answer: ``Oliver Cromwell is said to have exclaimed, as he lay a-dying, If I had served my God as I served my king, He would not have left me to mine enemies.'' Miss Graham relates in the University Correspondent an answer which contains the same confusion with a further one added: ``Wolsey was a famous general who fought in the Crimean War, and who, after being decapitated several times, said to Cromwell, Ah! if I had only served you as you have served me, I would not have been deserted in my old age.'' ``The Spanish Armada,'' wrote a young man of seventeen, ``took place in the reign of Queen Anne; she married Philip of Spain, who was a very cruel man. The Spanish and the English fought very bravely against each other. The English wanted to conquer Spain. Several battles were fought, in which hundreds of the English and Spanish were defeated. They lost some very large ships, and were at a great loss on both sides.''

The following description of the Nile by a schoolboy is very fine: ``The Nile is the only remarkable river in the world. It was discovered by Dr. Livingstone, and it rises in Mungo Park.'' Constantinople is described thus: ``It is on the Golden Horn; a strong fortress; has a University, and is the residence of Peter the Great. Its chief building is the Sublime Port.'' Amongst the additions to our geographical knowledge may be mentioned that Gibraltar is ``an island built on a rock,'' and that Portugal can only be reached through the St. Bernard's Pass ``by means of sledges drawn by reindeer and dogs.'' ``Turin is the capital of China,'' and ``Cuba is a town in Africa very difficult of access.''

One of the finest answers ever given in an examination was that of the boy who was asked to repeat all he knew of Sir Walter Raleigh. This was it: ``He introduced tobacco into England, and while he was smoking he exclaimed, `Master Ridley, we have this day lighted such a fire in England as shall never be put out.' '' Can that, with any sort of justice, be styled a blunder?

The rule that ``the King can do no wrong'' was carried to an extreme length when a schoolboy blunder of Louis XIV. was allowed to change the gender of a French noun. The King said ``un carosse,'' and that is what it is now. In Cotgrave's Dictionary carosse appears as feminine, but M<e'>nage notes it as having been changed from feminine to masculine.

It has already been pointed out that some of the blunders of the examined are due to the absurdity of the questions of the examiner. The following excellent anecdote from the late Archdeacon Sinclair's Sketches of Old Times and Distant Places (1875) shows that even when the question is sound a difficulty may arise by the manner of presenting it:—

``I was one day conversing with Dr. Williams about schools and school examinations. He said: `Let me give you a curious example of an examination at which I was present in Aberdeen. An English clergyman and a Lowland Scotsman visited one of the best parish schools in that city. They were strangers, but the master received them civilly, and inquired: ``Would you prefer that I should speer these boys, or that you should speer them yourselves?'' The English clergyman having ascertained that to speer meant to question, desired the master to proceed. He did so with great success, and the boys answered numerous interrogatories as to the Exodus from Egypt. The clergyman then said he would be glad in his turn to speer the boys, and began: ``How did Pharaoh die?'' There was a dead silence. In this dilemma the Lowland gentleman interposed. ``I think, sir, the boys are not accustomed to your English accent,'' and inquired in broad Scotch, ``Hoo did Phawraoh dee?'' Again there was a dead silence, till the master said: ``I think, gentlemen, you can't speer these boys; I'll show you how.'' And he proceeded: ``Fat cam to Phawraoh at his hinder end?'' i.e., in his latter days. The boys with one voice answered, ``He was drooned''; and a smart little fellow added, ``Ony lassie could hae told you that.'' The master then explained that in the Aberdeen dialect ``to dee'' means to die a natural death, or to die in bed: hence the perplexity of the boys, who knew that Pharaoh's end was very different.' ''

The author is able to add to this chapter a thoroughly original series of answers to certain questions relating to acoustics, light and heat, which Professor Oliver Lodge, F.R.S., has been so kind as to communicate for this work, and which cannot fail to be appreciated by his readers. It must be understood that all these answers are genuine, although they are not given verbatim et literatim, and in some instances one answer is made to contain several blunders. Professor Lodge expresses the opinion that the questions might in some instances have been worded better, so as to exclude several of the misapprehensions, and therefore that the answers may be of some service to future setters of questions. He adds that of late the South Kensington papers have become more drearily correct and monotonous, because the style of instruction now available affords less play to exuberant fancy untrammelled by any information regarding the subject in hand.

1880.—ACOUSTICS, LIGHT AND HEAT PAPER.

Science and Art Department.

The following are specimens of answers given by candidates at recent examinations in Acoustics, Light and Heat, held in connection with the Science and Art Department, South Kensington. The answers have not of course all been selected from the same paper, neither have they all been chosen for the same reason.

Question I.—State the relations existing between the pressure, temperature, and density of a given gas. How is it proved that when a gas expands its temperature is diminished?

Answer.—Now the answer to the first part of this question is, that the square root of the pressure increases, the square root of the density decreases, and the absolute temperature remains about the same; but as to the last part of the question about a gas expanding when its temperature is diminished, I expect I am intended to say I don't believe a word of it, for a bladder in front of a fire expands, but its temperature is not at all diminished.

Question 2.—If you walk on a dry path between two walls a few feet apart, you hear a musical note or ``ring'' at each footstep. Whence comes this?

Answer.—This is similar to phosphorescent paint. Once any sound gets between two parallel reflectors or walls, it bounds from one to the other and never stops for a long time. Hence it is persistent, and when you walk between the walls you hear the sounds made by those who walked there before you. By following a muffin man down the passage within a short time you can hear most distinctly a musical note, or, as it is more properly termed in the question, a ``ring'' at every (other) step.

Question 3.—What is the reason that the hammers which strike the strings of a pianoforte are made not to strike the middle of the strings? Why are the bass strings loaded with coils of wire?

Answer.—Because the tint of the clang would be bad. Because to jockey them heavily.

Question 4.—Explain how to determine the time of vibration of a given tuning- fork, and state what apparatus you would require for the purpose.

Answer.—For this determination I should require an accurate watch beating seconds, and a sensitive ear. I mount the fork on a suitable stand, and then, as the second hand of my watch passes the figure 60 on the dial, I draw the bow neatly across one of its prongs. I wait. I listen intently. The throbbing air particles are receiving the pulsations; the beating prongs are giving up their original force; and slowly yet surely the sound dies away. Still I can hear it, but faintly and with close attention; and now only by pressing the bones of my head against its prongs. Finally the last trace disappears. I look at the time and leave the room, having determined the time of vibration of the common ``pitch'' fork. This process deteriorates the fork considerably, hence a different operation must be performed on a fork which is only lent.

Question 6.—What is the difference between a ``real'' and a ``virtual'' image? Give a drawing showing the formation of one of each kind.

Answer.—You see a real image every morning when you shave. You do not see virtual images at all. The only people who see virtual images are those people who are not quite right, like Mrs. A. Virtual images are things which don't exist. I can't give you a reliable drawing of a virtual image, because I never saw one.

Question 8.—How would you disprove, experimentally, the assertion that white light passing through a piece of coloured glass acquires colour from the glass? What is it that really happens?

Answer.—To disprove the assertion (so repeatedly made) that ``white light passing through a piece of coloured glass acquires colour from the glass,'' I would ask the gentleman to observe that the glass has just as much colour after the light has gone through it as it had before. That is what would really happen.

Question 11.—Explain why, in order to cook food by boiling, at the top of a high mountain, you must employ a different method from that used at the sea level.

Answer.—It is easy to cook food at the sea level by boiling it, but once you get above the sea level the only plan is to fry it in its own fat. It is, in fact, impossible to boil water above the sea level by any amount of heat. A different method, therefore, would have to be employed to boil food at the top of a high mountain, but what that method is has not yet been discovered. The future may reveal it to a daring experimentalist.

Question 12.—State what are the conditions favourable for the formation of dew. Describe an instrument for determining the dew point, and the method of using it.

Answer.—This is easily proved from question 1. A body of gas as it ascends expands, cools, and deposits moisture; so if you walk up a hill the body of gas inside you expands, gives its heat to you, and deposits its moisture in the form of dew or common sweat. Hence these are the favourable conditions; and moreover it explains why you get warm by ascending a hill, in opposition to the well-known law of the Conservation of Energy.

Question 13.—On freezing water in a glass tube, the tube sometimes breaks. Why is this? An iceberg floats with 1,000,000 tons of ice above the water line. About how many tons are below the water line?

Answer.—The water breaks the tube because of capallarity. The iceberg floats on the top because it is lighter, hence no tons are below the water line. Another reason is that an iceberg cannot exceed 1,000,000 tons in weight: hence if this much is above water, none is below. Ice is exceptional to all other bodies except bismuth. All other bodies have 1090 feet below the surface and 2 feet extra for every degree centigrade. If it were not for this, all fish would die, and the earth be held in an iron grip.

P.S.—When I say 1090 feet, I mean 1090 feet per second.

Question 14.—If you were to pour a pound of molten lead and a pound of molten iron, each at the temperature of its melting point, upon two blocks of ice, which would melt the most ice, and why?

Answer.—This question relates to diathermancy. Iron is said to be a diathermanous body (from dia, through, and thermo, I heat), meaning that it gets heated through and through, and accordingly contains a large quantity of real heat. Lead is said to be an athermanous body (from a, privative, and thermo, I heat), meaning that it gets heated secretly or in a latent manner. Hence the answer to this question depends on which will get the best of it, the real heat of the iron or the latent heat of the lead. Probably the iron will smite furthest into the ice, as molten iron is white and glowing, while melted lead is dull.

Question 21.—A hollow indiarubber ball full of air is suspended on one arm of a balance and weighed in air. The whole is then covered by the receiver of an air pump. Explain what will happen as the air in the receiver is exhausted.

Answer.—The ball would expand and entirely fill the vessell, driving out all before it. The balance being of greater density than the rest would be the last to go, but in the end its inertia would be overcome and all would be expelled, and there would be a perfect vacuum. The ball would then burst, but you would not be aware of the fact on account of the loudness of a sound varying with the density of the place in which it is generated, and not on that in which it is heard.

Question 27.—Account for the delicate shades of colour sometimes seen on the inside of an oyster shell. State and explain the appearance presented when a beam of light falls upon a sheet of glass on which very fine equi-distant parallel lines have been scratched very close to one another.

Answer.—The delicate shades are due to putrefaction; the colours always show best when the oyster has been a bad one. Hence they are considered a defect and are called chromatic aberration.

The scratches on the glass will arrange themselves in rings round the light, as any one may see at night in a tram car.

Question 29.—Show how the hypothenuse face of a right-angled prism may be used as a reflector. What connection is there between the refractive index of a medium and the angle at which an emergent ray is totally reflected?

Answer.—Any face of any prism may be used as a reflector. The connexion between the refractive index of a medium and the angle at which an emergent ray does not emerge but is totally reflected is remarkable and not generally known.

Question 32.—Why do the inhabitants of cold climates eat fat? How would you find experimentally the relative quantities of heat given off when equal weights of sulphur, phosphorus, and carbon are thoroughly burned?

Answer.—An inhabitant of cold climates (called Frigid Zoans) eats fat principally because he can't get no lean, also because he wants to rise is temperature. But if equal weights of sulphur phosphorus and carbon are burned in his neighbourhood he will give off eating quite so much. The relative quantities of eat given off will depend upon how much sulphur etc. is burnt and how near it is burned to him. If I knew these facts it would be an easy sum to find the answer.

1881.

Question 1.—Sound is said to travel about four times as fast in water as in air. How has this been proved? State your reasons for thinking whether sound travels faster or slower in oil than in water.

Answer(a).—Mr. Colladon, a gentleman who happened to have a boat, wrote to a friend called Mr. Sturm to borrow another boat and row out on the other side of the lake, first providing himself with a large ear-trumpet. Mr. Colladon took a large bell weighing some tons which he put under water and hit furiously. Every time he hit the bell he lit a fusee, and Mr. Sturm looked at his watch. In this way it was found out as in the question.

It was also done by Mr. Byott who sang at one end of the water pipes of Paris, and a friend at the other end (on whom he could rely) heard the song as if it were a chorus, part coming through the water and part through the air.

(b) This is done by one person going into a hall (? a well) and making a noise, and another person stays outside and listens where the sound comes from. When Miss Beckwith saves life from drowning, her brother makes a noise under water, and she hearing the sound some time after can calculate where he is and dives for him; and what Miss Beckwith can do under water, of course a mathematician can do on dry land. Hence this is how it is done.

If oil is poured on the water it checks the sound-waves and puts you out.

Question 2.—What would happen if two sound-waves exactly alike were to meet one another in the open air, moving in opposite directions?

Answer.—If the sound-waves which meet in the open air had not come from the same source they would not recognise each others existence, but if they had they would embrace and mutually hold fast, in other words, interfere with and destroy each other.

Question 9.—Describe any way in which the velocity of light has been measured.

Answer (a).—A distinguished but Heathen philosopher, Homer, was the first to discover this. He was standing one day at one side of the earth looking at Jupiter when he conjectured that he would take 16 minutes to get to the other side. This conjecture he then verified by careful experiment. Now the whole way across the earth is 3,072,000 miles, and dividing this by 16 we get the velocity 192,000 miles a second. This is so great that it would take an express train 40 years to do it, and the bullet from a canon over 5000 years.

P.S.—I think the gentlemans name was Romer not Homer, but anyway he was 20% wrong and Mr. Fahrenheit and Mr. Celsius afterwards made more careful determinations.

(b) An Atheistic Scientist (falsely so called) tried experiments on the Satellites of Jupiter. He found that he could delay the eclipse 16 minutes by going to the other side of the earths orbit; in fact he found he could make the eclipse happen when he liked by simply shifting his position. Finding that credit was given him for determining the velocity of light by this means he repeated it so often that the calendar began to get seriously wrong and there were riots, and Pope Gregory had to set things right.

Question 10.—Explain why water pipes burst in cold weather.

Answer.—People who have not studied Acoustics think that Thor bursts the pipes, but we know that it is nothing of the kind for Professor Tyndall has burst the mythologies and has taught us that it is the natural behaviour of water (and bismuth) without which all fish would die and the earth be held in an iron grip,

CHAPTER VIII.

FOREIGNERS' ENGLISH.

IT is not surprising that foreigners should make mistakes when writing in English, and Englishmen, who know their own deficiencies in this respect, are not likely to be censorious when foreigners fall into these blunders. But when information is printed for the use of Englishmen, one would think that the only wise plan was to have the composition revised by one who is thoroughly acquainted with the language. That this natural precaution is not always taken we have ample evidence. Thus, at Havre, a polyglot announcement of certain local regulations was posted in the harbour, and the notice stood as follows in French: ``Un arrangement peut se faire avec le pilote pour de promenades <a!> rames.'' The following very strange translation into English appeared below the French: ``One arrangement can make himself with the pilot for the walking with roars.''

The papers distributed at international exhibitions are often very oddly worded. Thus, an agent in the French court of one of these, who described himself as an ``Ancient Commercial Dealer,'' stated on a handbill that ``being appointed by Tenants of the Exhibition to sell Show Cases, Frames, &c., which this Court incloses, I have the honour to inform Museum Collectors, Librarians, Builders, Shopkeepers, and business persons in general, that the fixed prices will hardly be the real value of the Glasses which adorn them.''

In 1864 was published in Paris a pretentious work, consisting of notices of the various literary and scientific societies of the world, which positively swarms with blunders in the portion devoted to England. The new forms into which well-known names are transmogrified must be seen to be believed. Wadham College is printed Washam, Warwick as Worwick; and one of our metropolitan parks is said to be dedicated to a saint whose name does not occur in any calendar, viz., St. Jam's Park. There is the old confusion respecting English titles which foreigners find so difficult to understand; and monsieur and esquire usually appear respectively before and after the names of the same persons. The Christian names of knights and baronets are omitted, so that we obtain such impossible forms as ``Sir Brown.''

The book is arranged geographically, and in all cases the English word ``shire'' is omitted, with the result that we come upon such an extremely curious monster as ``le Comt<e'> de Shrop.''

On the very first page is made the extraordinary blunder of turning the Cambrian Arch<ae>ological Association into a Cambridge Society; while the Parker Society, whose publications were printed at the University Press, is entered under Canterbury. It is possible that the Latin name Cantabrigia has originated this mistake. The Roxburgh Society, although its foundation after the sale of the magnificent library of the Duke of Roxburgh is correctly described, is here placed under the county of Roxburgh. The most amusing blunder, however, in the whole book is contained in the following charmingly na<i:>ve piece of etymology <a!> propos of the Geological and Polytechnic Society of the West Riding of Yorkshire: ``On sait qu'en Anglais le mot Ride se traduit par voyage <a!> cheval ou en voiture; on pourrait peut-<e^>tre penser, d<e!>s le d<e'>but, qu'il s'agit d'une Soci<e'>t<e'> hippique. II n'en est rien; <a!> l'exemple de l'Association Britannique, dont elle,'' etc. This pairs off well with the translation of Walker, London, given on a previous page.

The Germans find the same difficulty with English titles that the French do, and confuse the Sir at the commencement of our letters with Herr or Monsieur. Thus, they frequently address Englishmen as Sir, instead of mister or esquire. We have an instance of this in a publication of no less a learned body than the Royal Academy of Sciences of Munich, who issued in 1860 a ``Rede auf Sir Thomas Babington Macaulay.''

An hotel-keeper at Bale translated ``limonade gazeuse'' as ``gauze lemonads"; and the following delightful entry is from the Travellers' Book of the Drei Mohren Hotel at Augsburg, under date Jan. 28th, 1815: ``His Grace Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, &c., &c., &c. Great honour arrived at the beginning of this year to the three Moors. This illustrious warrior, whose glorious atchievements which cradled in Asia have filled Europe with his renown, descended in it.'' It may be thought that, as this is not printed, but only written, it is scarcely fair to preserve it here; but it really is too good to leave out.

The keepers of hotels are great sinners in respect to the manner in which they murder the English language. The following are a few samples of this form of literature, and most readers will recall others that they have come across in their travels.

The first is from Salzburg:—

``George Nelb<o:>ck begs leave to recommand his hotel to the Three Allied, situated vis-<a!>-vis of the birth house of Mozart, which offers all comforts to the meanest charges.

The next notice comes from Rastadt:—

``ADVICE OF AN HOTEL.

``The underwritten has the honour of informing the publick that he has made the acquisition of the hotel to the Savage, well situated in the middle of this city. He shall endeavour to do all duties which gentlemen travellers can justly expect; and invites them to please to convince themselves of it by their kind lodgings at his house.

``BASIL ``JA. SINGESEM.

``Before the tenant of the Hotel to
the Stork in this city.''

Whatever may be the ambition of mine host at Pompeii, it can scarcely be the fame of an English scholar:—

``Restorative Hotel Fine Hok,
     Kept by Frank Prosperi,
    Facing the military quarter
               at Pompei.

That hotel open since a very few days is renowned for the cheapness of the Apartments and linen, for the exactness of the service, and for the excellence of the true French cookery. Being situated at proximity of that regeneration, it will be propitious to receive families, whatever, which will desire to reside alternatively into that town to visit the monuments now found and to breathe thither the salubrity of the air. That establishment will avoid to all travellers, visitors of that sepult city and to the artists (willing draw the antiquities) a great disorder occasioned by tardy and expensive contour of the iron whay people will find equally thither a complete sortment of stranger wines and of the kingdom, hot and cold baths, stables, coach houses, the whole at very moderated prices. Now all the applications and endeavours of the Hoste will tend always to correspond to the tastes and desires of their customers which will require without doubt to him into that town the reputation whome, he is ambitious.''

On the occasion of the Universal Exhibition of Barcelona in 1888 the Moniteur de l'Exposition printed a description of Barcelona in French, German, Spanish, and English. The latter is so good that it is worthy of being printed in full:—

``Then there will be in the same Barcelona the first universal Exposition of Spain. It was not possible to choose a more favorable place, for the capital- town of Catalonia is a first-rate city open to civilization.

``It is quite out of possibility to deny it to be the industrial and commercial capital of the peninsula and a universal Exposition could not possibly meet in any other place a more lively splendour than in this magnificent town.

``Indeed what may want Barcelona to deserve to be called great and handsome? Are here not to be found archeological and architectural riches, whose specimens are inexhaustible?

``What are then those churches whose style it is impossible to find elsewhere, containing altars embellished with truly spanish magnificence, and so large and imposing cloisters, that there feels any man himself exceedingly small and little? What those shaded promenades, where the sun cannot almost get through with the golden tinge of its rays? what this Rambla where every good citizen of Barcelona must take his walk at least once every day, in order to accomplish the civic pilgrimage of a true Catalanian?

``And that Paseo Colon, so picturesque with its palmtrees and electric light, which makes it like, in the evening, a theatrical decoration, and whose ornament has been very happily just finished?

``And that statue of Christopher Colomb, whose installation will be accomplished in a very short time, whose price may be 500,000 francs?

``Are not there still a number of proud buildings, richly ornamented, and splendid theaters? one of them, perhaps the most beautiful, surely the largest (it contains 5000 places) the Liceo, is truly a master-pi<e!>ce, where the spectators are lost in admiration of the riches, the ornaments, the pictures and feel a true regret to turn their eyes from them to look at the stage.