The St. Johns herald., 1889-04-11
ABOUT MlsQuoTATioNs.
Learned Men as We'll as Common People
 Guilty of Inaccuracies.

The eyer-fruitful subject of misquotatlons is just now receiving a great amount of at tention. says the Boston Advertiser. Maga- zines. daily and weekly newspapers and college professors are, with one accord, pointing out the number and variety of ln- stances where familiar words are ascrloed to the wrong authors, or quoted with greater or less variation from the original form, or made to express ideas widely different from the meaning ascribed to them in the first nlace. The literature of the subject lis al ready very voluminous, and when re- searches nov taking place have been com pleted, promises to become yet greater It is alleged that the taint of inaccuracy at- taches to very large portion or all our ordinary citations, and that, strange to say, l the most learned men and the most eminent | authors are equally guilty in this matter with the common people. This whole sub feet calls for more philosophical treat | ment than has as yet been given to it. | Nothing seems to have been attempted thus | far. exceDt to collect instances of misquota- ! tion and then to exclaim upon the shocking | carelesspess or ignorance which they imply | Yet it may well excite wonder that the very facts brought to light have ere this sug- pested the query whether some deeper ln- sight can not be obtained into the cause.
 One of the most remarkable cases of change in an authors meaning is that hrst pointed out by Mir. R. G. White, who shows, what ought to be plain as day to the duliest reader of Shakespeare'S Troilus and Cres- sida. that the words Of that play, where ! Ulysses says to Achilles: "One touch o1 nature makes the whole world kln," are i spoken, not of mans nObler but ot hls oaser nature. As used all the world over by all sorts and conditions of men, thls sentl- rcnt is made to imply human brother l hood. If Mr. White had looked more | deeply he would have seen that Shake speare's meaning here has thus not been so much perverted as extended, The wise and keen-witted Ulysses lays down broad principle and proceeds to applyit in par ticular way. Mankind has accepted the principle. but with another larger and loftier application. It is as if the moral in- stiuct of humanity had said: ''Yes, one | toucb of nature does make the whole world kin in meaning, but it likewise makes 1t kin in magnanimity." The same kind of re- mark applies to the lines in Milton's Lycidas
 And every shepherd tells his tale
 Under the hawthorn in the vale.
 The critics are in great glee because they can prove that what the blind bard had in l
 to Phyllis, but the far less romantic pro- ceeding of counting the sheepl But how do the critics know that the shepherd did not make love as well as count sheep under the hawthorn? Are not all the probabilities
 in favor of the moro pleasing supposition!
 Hero. again, the alleged misquotation
 would appear to be only an enlarged ap-
 plication. And it may be said Tn general
 that wherever any utterance, in prose or
 verse; has found its way to the hearts and
 lips of mankind, and in the process has
 acquired a different significance from that
 originally given, the new meaning is some
 how better adapted to h1man natures needs
 than the old.
 Even in the case of q real misquotGtiOn, a
 similar reason is often discoverable, al
 though such errors are to be regretted and
 avoided. Every body repeats, upon occa
 sion, the lines:
 He that fights and runs away
 May live to fight another day.
 and almost every body, with any breton
 sions to literary knowledge, attributes
 them to Buffers "Hudlbras." /" Goldsmith did so. These lines are not to be found in But
 Ter: but the same idea, much moro clumsily expressed, has been traced to that source The most probable explanation IS thai
 Goldsmith, quoting from memory, uncon sciously translated Butler into Goldsmith's
 more felicitouS verse.
 Fully three-fourths of the instances fur nished in any collection of mlsquotatlon! will be found to relate to the Bible ol Shakespeare. In regard to the former, { curious observation may be made. It is { fact, perfectly well known to all educated clergymen, that the New Testamen abounds in quotations from the Old Testa , ment, and that they are very rarely accu rate, if accuracy means verbal identity The most usual explanation, and one entire
 ly acceptable to many theologians ot strict !, est orthodoxy, is that eXactness of phrase not being needed or intended, tht inspired writers Of the New Testa ncnt gave, in any particular instance either the language of the popular Septua
 gint translation-often, as every scholar | aware, exceedingly faulty-or the form o , words lodged in the writer's memory, or free rendering deemed to express th thought better than the original.
 . Those who think this explanation satis c factory should not-but some of them d
 complain that editors of what ha
 been aptly called tour uninspire
 Bible," Shakespeare, depart occasional
 ly from their great authors yer
 words, when modern words will revea
 the thought which archaic words conceal = A great outcry IS raised because, on tn u monument to Shakespeare in Westminste u Abbey, where the splendid passage iron r the Tempest beginning: "And like tn | t baseless fabric of this vision," is engraved the word ''wreck' is substituted for track U in the last line. It is, however, just poss | ble that the authority which supervised tn inscription is entitled to as much confidenc ' as the fault-finders.
 . The subject of Christian hymns holds . prominent place in all these discussions.
 is certain that many of the most familiar 0
 our social lyrics appear ia the hymn book . and are constantly sung with importan Y deviations from the forms in which the
 were composed. Of late several compila y tions of sacred poetry have been published ,' of which the special merit claimed is tha v every hymn is given as the author wrote Il 7, But there are two sides to this question, q = to most questions. There arc numerous 1T W Sta0caS where the consensus of the Chris