Character Sketches of Romance Volume I Part 123

She answers that talk of matron dignities and household tasks wearies her:

"I would renounce them all for Sappho's bay: Forego them all for room to chant out free The silent rhythms I hum within my heart, And so for ever leave my weary spinning!"

Margaret J. Preston, _Old Song and New_. (1870).

ERROL (_Cedric_). Bright American boy, living with his widowed mother, whose grandfather, Lord Fauntleroy, sends for and adopts him. The boy's sweetness of manners and n.o.bility of nature conquer the old man's prejudices, and win him to sympathy and co-operation in his schemes for making the world better.--Frances Hodgson Burnett, _Little Lord Fauntleroy_ (1889).

ERROL (_Gilbert, earl of_), lord high constable of Scotland.--Sir W.

Scott, _Fair Maid of Perth_ (time, Henry IV.).

ERROR, a monster who lived in a den in "Wandering Wood," and with, whom the Red Cross Knight had his first adventure. She had a brood of 1000 young ones of sundry shape, and these cubs crept into their mother's mouth when alarmed, as young kangaroos creep into their mother's pouch. The knight was nearly killed by the stench which issued from the foul fiend, but he succeeded in "rafting" her head off, whereupon the brood lapped up the blood, and burst with satiety.

Half like a serpent horribly displayed, But th' other half did woman's shape retain.

And as she lay upon the dirty ground, Her huge long tail her den all overspread, Yet was in knots and many boughts [_folds_] up-wound, Pointed with mortal sting.

Spenser, _Faery Queen_, i. 1 (1590).

ERROR OF ARTISTS, (See ANACHRONISMS).

ANGELO (_Michel_), in his great picture of the "Last Judgment" has introduced Charon's bark.

BREUGHEL, the Dutch painter, in a picture of the "Wise Men of the East" making their offerings to the infant Jesus, has represented one of them dressed in a large white surplice, booted and spurred, offering the model of a Dutch seventy-four to the infant.

ETTY has placed by the bedside of Holofernes a helmet of the period of the seventeenth century.

MAZZOCHI (_Paulo_), in his "Symbolical Painting of the Four Elements,"

represents the sea by _fishes_, the earth by _moles_, fire by a _salamander_, and air by a _camel_! Evidently he mistook the chameleon (which traditionally lives on air) for a camel.

TINTORET, in a picture which represents the "Israelites Gathering Manna in the Wilderness," has armed the men with guns.

VERONESE (_Paul_), in his "Marriage Feast of Cana of Galilee," has introduced among the guests several Benedictines.

WEST, president of the Royal Academy, has represented Paris the Phrygian in Roman costume.

WESTMINSTER HALL is full of absurdities. Witness the following as specimens:--

Sir Cloudesley Shovel is dressed in a Roman cuira.s.s and sandals, but on his head is a full-bottomed wig of the eighteenth century.

The Duke of Buckingham is arrayed in the costume of a Roman emperor, and his d.u.c.h.ess in the court dress of George I. period.

ERRORS OF AUTHORS, (See ANACHRONISMS.)

AKENSIDE. He views the Ganges from _Alpine_ heights.--_Pleasures of Imagination_.

ALLISON (_Sir Archibald_), says: "_Sir Peregine Pickle_ was one of the pall-bearers of the Duke of Wellington."--_Life of Lord Castlereagh_.

In his _History of Europe_, the phrase _droit de timbre_ ("stamp duty") he translates "timber duties."

ARTICLES OF WAR FOR THE ARMY. It is ordered "that every recruit shall have the 40th and 46th of the articles read to him." (art. iii.).

The 40th article relates wholly to the misconduct of _chaplains_, and has no sort of concern with recruits. Probably the 41st is meant, which is about mutiny and insubordination.

BROWNE (_William_) _Apelles' Curtain_. W. Browne says:

If ... I set my pencil to Appelles table [painting]

Or dare to _draw his curtain_.

_Britannia's Pastorals_, ii. 2.

This curtain was not drawn by Apelles, but by Parrhasius, who lived a full century before Apelles. The contest was between Zeuxis and Parrhasius. The former exhibited a bunch of grapes which deceived the birds, and the latter a curtain which deceived the compet.i.tor.

BRUYSSEL (_E. von_) says: "According to Homer, Achilles had a vulnerable heel." It is a vulgar error to attribute this myth to Homer. The blind old bard nowhere says a word about it. The story of dipping Achilles in the river Styx is altogether post-Homeric.

BYRON. _Xerxes' s.h.i.+ps_. Byron says that Xerxes looked on his "s.h.i.+ps by thousands" off the coast of Sal'amis. The entire number of sails were 1200; of these 400 were wrecked before the battle off the coast of Sepias, so that even supposing the whole of the rest were engaged, the number could not exceed 800.--_Isles of Greece_.

_The Isle Teos_. In the same poem he refers to "Teos" as one of the isles of Greece, but Teos is a maritime town on the coast of Ionia, in Asia Minor.

CERVANTES. _Dorothea's Father_. Dorothea represents herself as Queen of Micomicon, because both her father and mother were _dead_, but Don Quixote speaks of him to her as _alive_.--Pt. I. iv. 8.

_Mambrino's Helmet_. In pt. I. iii. 8 we are told that the galley-slaves set free by Don Quixote a.s.saulted him with stones, and "s.n.a.t.c.hing the basin from his head, _broke it to pieces_." In bk. iv.

15 we find this basin quite whole and sound, the subject of a judicial inquiry, the question being whether it was a helmet or a barber's basin. Sancho (ch. 11) says, he "picked it up, bruised and battered, intending to get it mended;" but he says, "I broke it to pieces," or, according to one translator, "broke it into a thousand pieces." In bk. iv. 8 we are told that Don Quixote "came from his chamber armed _cap-a-pie_, with the barber's basin on his head."

_Sancho's a.s.s_. We are told (pt. I. iii. 9) that Gines de Pa.s.samonte "stole Sancho's a.s.s." Sancho laments the loss with true pathos, and the knight condoles with him. But soon afterwards Cervantes says: "He _[Sancho]_ jogged on leisurely upon his a.s.s after his master."

_Sancho's Great-coat_. Sancho Panza, we are told, left his wallet behind in the Crescent Moon tavern, where he was tossed in a blanket, and put the provisions left by the priests in his great-coat (ch. 5).

The galley-slaves robbed him of "his _great-coat_, leaving only his doublet" (ch. 8), but in the next chapter (9) we find "the victuals had not been touched," though the rascals "searched diligently for booty." Now, if the food was in the great-coat, and the great-coat was stolen, how is it that the victuals remained in Sancho's possession untouched?

_Sancho's Wallet_. We are told that Sancho left his wallet by mistake at the tavern where he was blanket-tossed (ch. 5), but in ch. 9, when he found the portmanteau, "he crammed the gold and linen into his wallet."--Pt. I. iii.

To make these oversights more striking, the author says, when Sancho found the portmanteau, "he entirely forgot the loss of his _wallet_, his _great-coat_, and of his faithful companion and servant Dapple"

(_the a.s.s_).

_Supper_. Cervantes makes the party at the Crescent tavern eat two suppers in one evening. In ch. 5 the curate orders in supper, and "after supper" they read the story of _Fatal Curiosity_. In ch. 12 we are told "the cloth was laid [_again_] for supper," and the company sat down to it, quite forgetting that they had already supped.--Pt. I.

iv.

CHAMBERS'S ENCYCLOPAEDIA states that "the fame of Beaumarchais rests on his two operas, _Le Barbier de Seville_ (1755) and _Le Mariage de Figaro_." Every one knows that Mozart composed the opera of _Figaro_ (1786), and that Casti wrote the libretto. The opera of _Le Barbier de Seville_, or rather _Il Barbiere di Siviglia_, was composed by Rossini, in 1816. What Beaumarchais wrote was two comedies, one in four acts and the other in five acts.--Art. "Beaumarchais."

CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. We are told, in a paper ent.i.tled "Coincidences,"

that Thursday has proved a fatal day with the Tudors, for on that day died Henry VIII., Edward VI., Queen Mary, and Queen Elizabeth. If this had been the case it would, indeed, have been startling; but what are the facts? Henry VIII. died on _Friday_, January 28, 1547, and Elizabeth died on _Monday_, March 24, 1603.--Rymer, _Foedera_, xv.

In the same paper we are told with equal inaccuracy that _Sat.u.r.day_ has been fatal to the present dynasty, "for William IV. and every one of the Georges died on a Sat.u.r.day." What, however, says history proper? William IV. died on _Tuesday_, June 20, 1837; George I. died _Wednesday_, June 11, 1727; George III. died _Monday_, January 29, 1820; George IV. died _Sunday_, June 26, 1830; and only George II.

died on a _Sat.u.r.day_, "the day [_so_] fatal to the present dynasty."

CHAUCER says: The throstle-c.o.c.k sings so sweet a tone that Tubal himself, the first musican, could not equal it.--_The Court of Love_.

Of course he means Jubal.

CIBBER (_Colley_), in his _Love Makes a Man_, i., makes Carlos the student say, "For the cure of herds [_Virgil's_] _bucolicks_ are a master-piece; but when his art describes the commonwealth of bees ...

I'm ravished." He means _Georgics_. The _Bucolics_ are eclogues, and never touch upon either of these subjects. The diseases and cures of cattle are in _Georgic_ iii., and the habits, etc., of bees, _Georgic_ iv.