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.
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.
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.
CRITICS at fault. The licentiate tells Don Quixote that some critics found fault with him for defective memory, and instanced it in this; "We are told that Sancho's ass is stolen, but the author has forgotten to mention who the thief was." This is not the case, as we are distinctly informed that it was stolen by Gines de Passamonte, one of the galley slaves.—Don Quixote, II. i. 3.
DICKENS, in Edwin Drood, puts "rooks and rooks' nests" (instead of daws) "in the tower of Cloisterham."
In Nicholas Nickleby he presents Mr. Squeers as setting his boys "to hoe turnips" in midwinter.
In The Tale of Two Cities, iii. 4, he says: "The name of the strong man of Old Scripture descended to the chief functionary who worked the guillotine." But the name of this functionary was Sanson, not Samson.
GALEN says that man has seven bones in the sternum (instead of three); and Sylvius, in reply to Vesalius, contends that "in days of yore the robust chests of heroes had more bones than men now have."
GREENE (Robert) speaks of Delphos as an island; But Delphos, or rather Delphi, was a city of Phocis, and no island. "Six noblemen were sent to the isle of Delphos."—Donastus and Faunia. Probably he confounded the city of Delphi with the isle of Delos.