Chapter Erragon to Errors of Authors of E by Brewer's Readers Handbook

(12) Chambers’s Encyclopædia 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 Barbier de di Seville, was composed by Rossini, in 1816. What Beaumarchais wrote was two comedies, one in four acts and the other in five.—Art. “Beaumarchais.”

(13) Chambers’s Journal. We are told, in a paper entitled “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.” This is not correct in regard to Henry VIII., who died January 28, 1546–7, according to the best authority, Rymer’s Fœdera, vol. xv., and that day was a Friday (Old Style), and not a Thursday.

In the same paper we are told that Saturday has been fatal to the present dynasty, “for William IV. and every one of the Georges died on a Saturday.” This is not correct in regard to George I., Who died Sunday, June II, 1727, and William IV., who died Tuesday, June 20, 1837. The other three Georges died on a Saturday, viz. George II., October 25, 1760; George III., January 29, 1820; and George IV., June 26, 1830.

(14) Chaucer says, “The throstlecock sings so sweet a tune that Tubal himself, the first musician, could not equal it.”—The Court of Love. Of course he means Jubal.

In his House of Fame, he mistakes the giant Orion for Arion the musician.

(15) 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 the 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.

(16) Cid (The). When Alfonso succeeded his brother Sancho and banished the Cid, Rodrigo is made to say—

Prithee say where were these gallants
(Bold enough when far from blows)!
Where were they when I, unaided,
Rescued thee from thirteen foes?

The historic fact is, not that Rodrigo rescued Alfonso from thirteen foes, but that the Cid rescued Sancho from thirteen of Alfonso’s foes. Eleven he slew, and two he put to flight.—The Cid, xvi. 78.

(17) Colman. Job Thornberry says to Peregrine, who offers to assist him in his difficulties, “Desist, young man, in time.” But Peregrine was at least 45 years old when so addressed. He was 15 when Job first knew him, and had been absent thirty years in Calcutta. Job Thornberry himself was not above five or six years older.

(18) Cowper calls the rose “the glory of April and May,” but June is the great rose month. In the south of England they begin to bloom in the latter half of May, and go on to the middle of July. April roses would be horticultural curiosities.

In his Invitation to Newton he speaks of the hibernation of swallows—

The swallows, in their torpid state,
Compose their useless wing;
And bees in hives as idly wait
The call of early spring.

(N.B.—Swallows do not hibernate; and bees in a hive are not idle in winter-time.)

In his Yearly Distress he mistakes hoggets (young sheep) for pigs or hogs.

The pigs [koggets] that he had lost
By maggots in their tail.