Quandoque bonus dormitat Homerus.—HORACE.
_Jugurtha_
The effect of Mr. Longfellow’s fine poem, “Jugurtha,” is impaired by a
curious mistake. The first of the two stanzas composing it are as
follows:
“‘How cold are thy baths, Apollo!’
Cried the African monarch, the splendid,
As down to his death in the hollow,
Dark dungeons of death he descended,
Uncrowned, unthroned, unattended,
‘How cold are thy baths, Apollo!’”
As a matter of fact, Jugurtha’s exclamation when thrust into the cold,
dark prison was “Heracles, how cold your [plural, _humon_] bath is!”
(see Plutarch, _Marius_, c. 12). “Heracles” (the Greek form of Hercules)
is the ordinary Greek interjection, not an address to a god. The most
natural explanation of this odd mistake seems to be the following: Mr.
Longfellow substituted the name of one god for another by a slip of the
memory. When Apollo thus replaced Heracles, it was natural to make the
further supposition that he was directly addressed, and that the
ambiguous “your” was singular.
_Completing a Sentence_
Senator Hoar of Massachusetts, knew his Bible very well, from cover to
cover, and drew upon it for philosophy and illustration with great
facility. Only once in a great while was he caught tripping in this
field. One such occasion was while the Senate was discussing the Chinese
treaty of 1881. He quoted against the exclusion policy St. Paul’s
declaration, “For God hath made of one blood all the nations of the
earth.”
Senator Miller, of California, exclaimed,—“Go on—quote the remainder of
the sentence.”
“There is no more of it,” said Mr. Hoar.
“Oh yes there is,” rejoined Miller, “for the Apostle added to the words
which the Senator had just quoted, ‘and hath determined the bounds of
their habitation.’”
_Racine_ vs. _Voltaire_
When Louis Napoleon was in temporary exile in New York, he complied with
the request of a young lady for his autograph in her album as follows:
“Le premier qui fut roi, fut un soldat heureux;
Qui sert bien son pays n’a pas besoin d’aïeux.
“LOUIS NAPOLÉON BONAPARTE.
“(_Racine._)
“NEW YORK, 10 June, 1837.”
The Prince and future Emperor thus attributed to Racine a couplet which
should have been credited to Voltaire.
_A Chinese Cycle_
A Chinese scholar has pointed out that when Tennyson wrote “Locksley
Hall” he could not have been aware of the exact nature of a Chinese
cycle. “Better,” he exclaimed, “fifty years of Europe than a cycle of
Cathay.” It being granted that Cathay is poetical English for China, it
was stated, with the complete concurrence of an eminent mandarin who was
present, that a Chinese cycle consists, and has for some centuries
consisted, of sixty years. By these cycles the lapse of time has been
computed in China during the whole of the present dynasty. The poet,
therefore, was less complimentary to Europe than he probably intended to
be when he said that fifty years of Europe was only equal to sixty years
of China.
_Watts_ vs. _Cowper_
Few hymns are better known than Cowper’s “Light Shining Out of
Darkness,” commencing
“God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform;
He plants his footsteps in the sea,
And rides upon the storm.”
In the “Student’s English Literature,” published by Murray in 1901, this
is part of what is said of Isaac Watts:
“His hymns are well known to all Englishmen—few hymns can surpass ‘God
moves in a mysterious way’ for a certain majesty of simple sound.”
This ascription to Watts of Cowper’s stately and sonorous hymn is very
strange, to say the least.
_Bret Harte’s Astronomy_
There is a little discrepancy in the poem by Mr. Bret Harte, entitled
“Her Letter,” beginning with the lines:
“I’m sitting alone by the fire,
Dressed just as I came from the dance.”
A girl in New York writes to her lover, who is supposed to be a miner in
the far West. Yet, in the concluding stanza, she bids him good night, as
follows:
“Good-night, here’s the end of my paper,
Good-night, if the longitude please:
For, perhaps, while I’m wasting my taper,
Your sun’s climbing over the trees.”
It is a little difficult to imagine how it could be sunrise in
California at the conclusion of an evening party in New York, even
though the dancers had prolonged their amusement until compelled to
“chase the glowing hours with flying feet.” And, furthermore, this is
improbable because the writer is represented as writing by artificial
light. Evidently “Old Folinsbee’s Daughter” had had more training in
sentiment than in astronomy.
_Wolseley’s Mistake_
Lord Wolseley ends his “Decline and Fall of Napoleon” with the following
words:
“So wrote the finger on the wall about the proud King of Babylon. It
might with equal truth have been written of him whose overthrow at
Waterloo is thus described in verse:
“‘Since he miscalled the morning star,
Nor man nor fiend hath fallen so far.’”
Wolseley’s assumption that Byron referred to the defeat at Waterloo is
incorrect. The “Ode to Napoleon” was written in 1814, and the date of
Waterloo is June, 1815. The reference is to Napoleon’s abdication in
April, 1814, and the “sullen isle” in stanza xiv, is Elba, not St.
Helena.
_Johnson’s Error_
The great lexicographer in dealing with the word Confection has the
following:
“Of best things then what world shall yield confection,
To liken her?”—SHAKESPEARE.
If we may trust the concordances, there is nothing of the sort in the
works of Shakespeare. In Latham’s edition of the Dictionary it is
omitted. Johnson can hardly be charged with inventing quotations; but he
often trusted his memory in a very haphazard fashion.
_Milton’s Italian_