As absurd a blunder was this of Dr. Stukeley on the coins of Carausius; finding a battered one with a defaced inscription of

Fortvna avg.

he read it

ORIVNA AVg.

And sagaciously interpreting this to be the wife of Carausius makes a new personage start up in history; he contrives even to give some theoretical Memoirs of the August Oriuna!

Pope, in a note on Measure for Measure, informs us that its story was taken from Cinthio's Novels, Dec. 8. Nov. 5. That is, Decade 8, Novel 5. The critical Warburton, in his edition of Shakespeare (as the author of Canons of Criticism observes) puts the words in full length thus, December 8, November 5.

Voltaire has given in his Philosophical Dictionary, article Abus des Mots, a literary anecdote of a singular nature; a complete qui pro quo. When the fragments of Petronius made a great noise in the literary world, Meibomius, an erudit of Lubeck, read in a letter from another learned scholar of Bologna, "We have here an entire Petronius, I saw it with mine own eyes, and with admiration." Meibomius in post-haste travels to Italy, arrives at Bologna, and immediately inquires for the librarian Capponi. He asks

him if it was true that they had at Bologna an entire Petronius. Capponi assures him that it was a thing which had long been public. Can I see this Petronius? Have the kindness to let me examine it. Certainly, replies Capponi. He leads our erudit of Lubeck to the church where reposes the body of Saint Petronius. Meibomius bites. his lip, calls for his chaise and takes his flight.

A French translator, when he came to a passage of Swift, in which it is said that the duke of Marlborough broke an officer; not being acquainted with this Anglicism, he translated it roué, as if the officer had been broke on a wheel: an odious punishment, which neither our national freedom nor humanity would permit a fellow-citizen to suffer from the sentence of his general.

Another French writer, who translated Cibber's play of "Love's Last Shift," entitled it thus, "La Derniere Chemise de l'Amour." A similar blunder is that of the French writer of Congreve's life, who has taken his Mourning, for a Morning Bride, and translated it, L'Espouse du Matin.

Sir John Pringle in a work of his mentions his having cured a soldier by the use of two quarts of Dog and Duck water daily; a French physician who translated it, specifies it as an excellent broth made of a duck and a dog!

A similar oversight is this of an English translator, who 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 neuvieme (nine) for nouvelle or neuve (new).

The facetious Tom Browne committed a strange blunder in his translaton of Gelli's Circe. When he came to the word Starne, not exactly being aware of its signification, he boldly rendered it, stares, probably from the similitude of sound, but the succeeding translator more correctly discovered Starne to be red-legged partridges!

Dr.Johnson while composing his Dictionary sent a note to the Gentleman's Magazine, to enquire the etymology of the word Curmudgeon. Having obtained the desired information he records in his work the obligation to an anonymous letter writer. "Curmudgeon, s. a vitious way of pronouncing coeur mechant. An unknown correspondent." Ash copies the word into his dictionary in this manner, "Curmudgeon, from the French coeur unknown, and mechant a correspondent."

In Charles II's. reign a new collect was drawn, in which a new epithet was added to the King's title, that gave (says Burnet) great offence, and occasioned great raillery. He was stiled our most religious King. Whatever the signification of re

ligious 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 know little of the genius of their own language; and would make the English servilely bend to the Latin and Greek; however it will not bear the yoke their unskilful hands put on its neck. Milton has been justly censured for his free Grecisms.

use of Latinisms and

A literary blunder of Thomas Warton is worth recording, as 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 her 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 where 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 was certainly more useful than a bird, in a duel.

A LITERARY WIFE.

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.

In our preceding article, 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 given into all the frivolities of the age. E

VOL. II.