The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1894-11-14
AUTHORS SLIPS.
Amusing Errors That Have Been Made by
Many Famous Writers.
Clinton Scotland.

Amusing Errors That Have Been Made by
Many Famous Writers.
Some one has been telling the read
ers of the st. Louis Globe-Democrat
about the errors Of which well known
authors are guilty in their books-er-
rors in history, philosophy, astron-
Omy, geography, everything Read
what he says
Shakespeare speaks of King John
ard his barons as fighting with can
non, whereas these instruments of
destruction were then entirely un-
known; he causes one character to
mention printing 200 years before
the time of Gutenberg and another
TO allude to striking clocks in the
dfys of julius Caesar; he mentions a
billiard table as part of the furniture
of Cleopatra's summer palace and
causes Hector to quote Aristotle; he
makes ridiculous plumbers in geog-
raphy, giving seaports to Bohemia,
an inland country, and speaking Of
Delphos as an island.
In popular novel of recent date
the author decided to kill his victim
with consumption and then gave
him all the symptoms of pneumonia.
Wilkie Collins avoided blunders of
this kind by a curiously practical
method. When he wished to use
sickness az means of promoting tho
plot of his story, he interviewed the
family physician on the subject.
The Count of Monte Cristo" is
full of slips that could have occurred
only through the authors forgetful-
ness. The fortune with which he
endows his hero is enormous, being
about $4,000, 900 to begin with, and
after years of the most reckless eX-
penditure, after money has been
scattered with both hands and in
lavish prodigal fashion, the author
assures his readers in calm forgetful
ness of the amount with which he
started the count on his career that
the remainder is upward of $40, 600,
000
Thackeray, who was exceedingly
anxious to get everything right,
was perpetually getting everything
wrong. Any reader who takes the
pains to examine critically the works
of the great English satirist will fine
innumerable plumbers, arising fol
the most part simply from careless
ness. The names are mixed, the here
is sometimes called by the name o
one of the other characters, and il
at least one place an important per
sonage is called by name from an
other novel. This is Philip Firmin
whom he called Give Newcome. No
was this his worst blunder, for il
another story he killed and buriet
old Lady Kew and later brought he
again on the scene to round off cor
ner of the story,
George Eliot, whose knowledge o
science is highly commended, il
1.-THE Mill on the Floss" makes tn
odd blunder of having the boat over
taken in midstream by mass O
drift floating at more rapid rat
than the frail craft, physical in
possibility.
More than one astronomer ha
pointed out the mistakes Charlie
Reade has perpetrated in astronom
and geography. But Reade is nC
the only sinner in this particulal
Howells sometimes makes parad
of his knowledge and in one place i
"Silas Lapham" alludes to the ran
and file" as synonymous with of
GERS and men. Dean Swift speaks {
Pennsylvania as frozen, desc
plain, blunder that might be e,
tenuated on the score OF the ign'
rance prevailing in his time, and, fC
that matter, ever since, in Englan
of American matters, while Amel
B. Edwards, in Hand and Glove,
mentions IAN overseer on a Mass
chusetts cotton plantation.