The Biggest Curiosities of Literature. Disraeli Isaac
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quarrel between the poet and the critic, in which the former exhaled his bile in several abusive epigrams, which have, fortunately for his credit, not been preserved in his works.
The lively Voltaire could not resist the charm of abusing his adversaries. We may smile when he calls a blockhead, a blockhead; a dotard, a dotard; but when he attacks, for a difference of opinion, the morals of another man, our sensibility is alarmed. A higher tribunal than that of criticism is to decide on the actions of men.
There is a certain disguised malice, which some writers have most unfairly employed in characterising a contemporary. Burnet called Prior, one Prior. In Bishop Parker's History of his Own Times, an innocent reader may start at seeing the celebrated Marvell described as an outcast of society; an infamous libeller; and one whose talents were even more despicable than his person. To such lengths did the hatred of party, united with personal rancour, carry this bishop, who was himself the worst of time-servers. He was, however, amply paid by the keen wit of Marvell in "The Rehearsal Transposed," which may still be read with delight, as an admirable effusion of banter, wit, and satire. Le Clerc, a cool ponderous Greek critic, quarrelled with Boileau about a passage in Longinus, and several years afterwards, in revising Moreri's Dictionary, gave a short sarcastic notice of the poet's brother; in which he calls him the elder brother of him who has written the book entitled, "Satires of Mr. Boileau Despréaux!"—the works of the modern Horace, which were then delighting Europe, he calls, with simple impudence, "a book entitled Satires!"
The works of Homer produced a controversy, both long and virulent, amongst the wits of France. This literary quarrel is of some note in the annals of literature, since it has produced two valuable books; La Motte's "Réflexions sur la Critique," and Madame Dacier's "Des Causes de la Corruption du Goût." La Motte wrote with feminine delicacy, and Madame Dacier like a University pedant. "At length, by the efforts of Valincour, the friend of art, of artists, and of peace, the contest was terminated." Both parties were formidable in number, and to each he made remonstrances, and applied reproaches. La Motte and Madame Dacier, the opposite leaders, were convinced by his arguments, made reciprocal concessions, and concluded a peace. The treaty was formally ratified at a dinner, given on the occasion by a Madame De Staël, who represented "Neutrality." Libations were poured to the memory of old Homer, and the parties were reconciled.
LITERARY BLUNDERS.
When Dante published his "Inferno," the simplicity of the age accepted it as a true narrative of his descent into hell.
When the Utopia of Sir Thomas More was first published, it occasioned a pleasant mistake. This political romance represents a perfect, but visionary republic, in an island supposed to have been newly discovered in America. "As this was the age of discovery," says Granger, "the learned Budæus, and others, took it for a genuine history; and considered it as highly expedient, that missionaries should be sent thither, in order to convert so wise a nation to Christianity."
It was a long while after publication that many readers were convinced that Gulliver's Travels were fictitious.90
But the most singular blunder was produced by the ingenious "Hermippus Redivivus" of Dr. Campbell, a curious banter on the hermetic philosophy, and the universal medicine; but the grave irony is so closely kept up, that it deceived for a length of time the most learned. His notion of the art of prolonging life, by inhaling the breath of young women, was eagerly credited. A physician, who himself had composed a treatise on health, was so influenced by it, that he actually took lodgings at a female boarding-school, that he might never be without a constant supply of the breath of young ladies. Mr. Thicknesse seriously adopted the project. Dr. Kippis acknowledged that after he had read the work in his youth, the reasonings and the facts left him several days in a kind of fairy land. I have a copy with manuscript notes by a learned physician, who seems to have had no doubts of its veracity. After all, the intention of the work was long doubtful; till Dr. Campbell assured a friend it was a mere jeu-d'esprit; that Bayle was considered as standing without a rival in the art of treating at large a difficult subject, without discovering to which side his own sentiments leaned: Campbell had read more uncommon books than most men, and wished to rival Bayle, and at the same time to give many curious matters little known.
Palavicini, in his History of the Council of Trent, to confer an honour on M. Lansac, ambassador of Charles IX. to that council, bestows on him a collar of the order of Saint Esprit; but which order was not instituted till several years afterwards by Henry III. A similar voluntary blunder is that of Surita, in his Annales de la Corona de Aragon. This writer represents, in the battles he describes, many persons who were not present; and this, merely to confer honour on some particular families.
Fabiana, quoting a French narrative of travels in Italy, took for the name of the author the words, found at the end of the title-page, Enrichi de deux Listes; that is, "Enriched with two lists:" on this he observes, "that Mr. Enriched with two lists has not failed to do that justice to Ciampini which he merited."91 The abridgers of Gesner's Bibliotheca ascribe the romance of Amadis to one Acuerdo Olvido; Remembrance, Oblivion; mistaking the French translator's Spanish motto on the title-page for the name of the author.
D'Aquin, the French king's physician, in his Memoir on the Preparation of Bark, takes Mantissa, which is the title of the Appendix to the History of Plants, by Johnstone, for the name of an author, and who, he says, is so extremely rare, that he only knows him by name.
Lord Bolingbroke imagined, that in those famous verses, beginning with Excudent alii, &c., Virgil attributed to the Romans the glory of having surpassed the Greeks in historical composition: according to his idea, those Roman historians whom Virgil preferred to the Grecians were Sallust, Livy, and Tacitus. But Virgil died before Livy had written his history, or Tacitus was born.
An honest friar, who compiled a church history, has placed in the class of ecclesiastical writers Guarini, the Italian poet, on the faith of the title of his celebrated amorous pastoral, Il Pastor Fido, "The Faithful Shepherd;" our good father imagined that the character of a curate, vicar, or bishop, was represented in this work.
A blunder has been recorded of the monks in the dark ages, which was likely enough to happen when their ignorance was so dense. A rector of a parish going to law with his parishioners about paving the church, quoted this authority from St. Peter—Paveant illi, non paveam ego; which he construed, They are to pave the church, not I. This was allowed to be good law by a judge, himself an ecclesiastic too.
One of the grossest literary blunders of modern times is that of the late Gilbert Wakefield, in his edition of Pope. He there takes the well-known "Song by a Person of Quality," which is a piece of ridicule on the glittering tuneful nonsense of certain poets, as a serious composition. In a most copious commentary, he proves that every line seems unconnected with its brothers, and that the whole reflects disgrace on its author! A circumstance which too evidently shows how necessary the knowledge of modern literary history is to a modern commentator, and that those who are profound in verbal Greek are not the best critics on English writers.
The Abbé Bizot, the author of the medallic history of Holland, fell into a droll mistake. There is a medal, struck when Philip II. set forth his invincible Armada, on which are represented the King of Spain, the Emperor, the Pope, Electors, Cardinals, &c., with their eyes covered with a bandage, and bearing for inscription this fine verse of Lucretius:—
O cæcas hominum menteis! O pectora cæca!
The Abbé, prepossessed with the prejudice that a nation persecuted by the Pope and his adherents could not represent them without some insult, did not examine with sufficient care the ends of the bandages which covered the eyes and waved about the heads of the personages represented on this medal: he rashly took them for asses' ears, and as such they are engraved!
Mabillon has preserved a curious literary blunder of some pious Spaniards, who applied to the Pope for consecrating a day in honour of Saint Viar. His holiness, in the voluminous catalogue of his saints, was ignorant of