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

raitors (``I traduttori sono traditori''); and books are said to be done into English, traduced in French, and overset in Dutch. Colton, the author of La

of his native literature, and it became a proverbial saying among his i

and) in a passage from Ariosto by ``Cap de Capo Basso,'' on account of wh

he translator, overlooking the mark of contraction, declared to the astonished world on the authority of Plato that the horse- leech instead of the swallow was the harbinger of spring. Hoole, the t

>drale.'' He quite overlooked the word chanoines, which he should have used. This use of a word

similarly spelt is a constant source of trouble to the translator: for instance,

ey's specimen of a French Abb's Greek. Having to paraphrase the Greek words ``'' (Herodotus even while Ionicizing), the Frenchman rendered them ``Herodote et aussi Jazon,'' th

nto blads and fly out of it.'' M. Campenon, the translator of Robertson into French, turns this into the startling statement that he broke his pulpit and leaped into the midst of his auditors

ins in this book that the muse of history cares more for the rulers than for the ruled, and, telling only what is pleasant, ignores the truth when it is unpalatable to kings. After an outburst of bombast he says that no history of England tells us that Charles II. murdered his brother the Duke of Gloucester. We should be sur

prised if any did do so, as that young m

Cicero's Offices should have been translated Duties, and Marmontel never intended to write what we understand by Moral Tales, but rather tales of manners or of fashionable life. The translators of Calmet's Dictionary of the Bible render the French anc

ities. There was more excuse for the French translator of one of Sir Walter Scott's novels who rendered a welsh rabbit (or rarebit, as it is sometimes spelt) into un lapin du pays de Galles. Walpole states that the Duchess of Bolton used to divert George I. by affecting to make blunders, and once when she had been to see Cibber's play of Love's Last Shift s

ned into Frapp ou Mademoiselle, and the In

who turned ``a sticket minister'' into ``le ministre assassin,'' gives from the Bibliothque Universelle

Peter Gore). Our versions of Eastern names are so different from the originals that when the

two are placed together there appears to be no likeness between them, and the different positions which they take up in the alphabet cause the bibliographer an infinity of trouble. Thus the original of Xerxes is Khshayarsha (the revered king), an

g ``under the vaults'' of the Tuileries instead of beneath the arched galleries (sous ses voutes). This, however, is nothing to a blunder to be found in the Secret Memoirs of the Court of

Louis XIV. and of the Regency (1824). The following passage fr

aid, ``But a lot of young fellows come out here, and they drink and they eat, and they eat and they d

you will be nothing at all.'' Surely he who translated Dieu dfend l'adultre as God defends adultery more justly deserved punishment! Guthrie, the geographical writer, who

r of a translator who knew nothing of the technical name for a br

eeps the labo

n

e'>truit les trav

gone is almost too good; and the man who mistook the expression ``the officer was broke'' as meaning broke

by Erckmann-Chatrian, the old botc

s to kings, princes, and persons holding honourable offices. In these laws sable is called vair, and it has been asserted that Perrault marked the dignity conferred upon Cinderella by the fairy's gift of a slipper of vair, a privilege confined to the highest rank of princesses. It is further stated that by an error of the printer vair was changed into verre. Now, however, we find i

ritten a book,'' is wrong; but it will never drop out of our language and literature. The Revised Version is certainly much mo

I had one

gnature, let the A

dictment which mine a

d carry it up

it unto me

f the idioms of the language into which they were translating, and he gave an instance from an Arabic translation where

sier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God,'' by

to be found in Stanyhurst's rendering of Virgil, published in 1583. It is full of c

otching, not shapte, b

(such as oft, with

lattreth) but yeet n

atiques, uses the singular forms Monsieur Zole and Mademoiselle Lycoris. The same author

and Lord Alvanley, was rather hot-tempered, and his name was considered somewhat appropri

who toasted Dr. Johnson, not as

title), supposed that the Brevia Parliamentaria of Prynne stood for ``short parliaments.'' Lord Lansdowne told Moore that he was with Lord Holland when the letter containing this precious bit of erudi

a row at the Stock Exchange, where some strangers were hustled, it appeared in th

obably truer than the original. He who construed Csar's mode of passing into Gaul summa diligentia, ``on the top of the diligence,'' must have been of an

bra as Betwixt Dover and Calais gave as his r

Shakespeare's remarkable translation of Finis Coronat opus. Helena remarks in All's well that

2) old Lord Clifford, just before he dies, is ma

uronne les

rst Folio

orrone les