Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1888-08-17

the deliberate sanction of two litterateurs.
But Mathews's book ls not at hand as
write, and 1t is more than possible that
he made no such statement as is here
credited to him: Now, turning to book
shelf at my elbow, find a copv of the
Poems of Matthew Prior, ESD, The firth
edition, London, 1733'-printed IS years
before the parody is said to have been
pubished-and discover on page POS
Henry and Emma, poem upon the
mDdeJ of the Nut-Brown Maid" and.
turning back eight pages, find, 1.-THE Nut
Brown Maid, Poem, Written Three
Hundred Years Since" or 800 years be-
fore saw 1921, the year in which Prior
died. The latter poem at least is familiar
enough to every tyro in English letters
being given by Percy in his "Reliques," a
book which did not appear until 1765 but
since that date in seemingly countless
editions.
But this is not the last of this batch of
plumbers. Pror's line
That air and harm ony of SHAPE express"
Is transprosed and bewitched into the fol
lowing
THAT air Of harmony and shape express"
In correcting one error our schoolmaster
commits two new ones of his own Six
objectionable errors in the space of six
lines
To correct the "disjecta me mbra DO
etae, so often quoted as from Horace,
ne cites as the genuine original, page 1871,
"Invenies ctiam disjecti membra poetae,"
where all the editions so far as have con-
suited them, have inUeniuS.
He says that a certain famous phrase of
virgil is almost always cited thus: Elk
uno disco onlne lAeneid ii65l, q have gen
orally heard and seen Alb uno disco ON
ntd), and aflirms that it could not posi-
bly, form part of Latin heXameter The
reasons in detail for this latter statement
might be very interesting to the prose-
dian.
But not content with exemplifying the
proper method of citation from English
and Latin poets, our essayst assays the
exegesis of the Hebrew prophets After
iessoning those who say, "He who runs
may read" instead of He NAV run that
readeth it' [E1ab. ii 81 he proceeds to ex-
pound 1.-The prophet Is to write so plainly
that any one who reads 1t may run away
from the coming vengeance" And he
chides Bp. Wordsw nth for giving the
sanction Of his high authority to the vul-
gar but certainly erroneous use of the quo
tation" see W. Greek n. Test. Gdl GILL
| confess to no admiration for Bp. Words.
worth's principles or practice of interpre.
tation-and the note in question is shin
ing example of his faulty method but if
in this instance, one must choose between
Wordsworth and our eXtemporary exc
should 90 to Canon Cook in the Speakers
Commentary, or to henderson, or to &c
senius, c. q, for a short lesson on this
text.
my examples" he says, ARE drawn
from great variety of sources" 1t seems
to one reader, on the contrary, that he has
tor the most part threshei over again the
sam Old straw that has been so often sub
iect edto the pedagogical fail. If Bart
lett had not complied tor us his FAM liaI
Quotations." aud Mathews writ en- his
little book on Words, their Use and
Abuse" we should probably never have
been favored with this attempt to show Us
How to Quote. The paper exhales
throughout decided flavor of secund-or
third handedness. Our volunteer mentor
and monitor would appear TO rely upon 4
memory as treqcherous, to exhibit d care
lessness as eprehensible, and an indispo
sition to Verify his Quotations rs marked,
as the worst of those whose derellctions hs
deplores. Certainly | do not remember to
have seen anything equally bad in tht
way of CARRIED quotatlOn. Our self-intro
duced ESculapius shows symptoms of be
ing incurably ill oft he very distemper fol
which he prescribes so freely to others.
August T.