A writer in a German paper was led into an amusing blunder by an English review a few years ago. The reviewer, having occasion to draw a distinction between George and Robert Cruikshank, spoke of the former as the real Simon Pure. The German, not understanding the allusion, gravely told his readers that George Cruikshank was a pseudonym, the author's real name being Simon Pure. This seems almost too good to be equalled, but a countryman of our own has blundered nearly as grossly. William Taylor, in his Historic Survey of German Poetry (1830), prints the following absurd statement: ``Godfred of Berlichingen is one <p 71>of the earliest imitations of the Shakspeare tragedy which the German school has produced. It was admirably translated into English in 1799 at Edinburg by William Scott, advocate, no doubt the same person who, under the poetical but assumed name of Walter, has since become the most extensively popular of the British writers.'' The cause of this mistake we cannot explain, but the reason for it is to be found in the fact which has lately been announced that a few copies of the translation, with the misprint of William for Walter in the title, were issued before the error was discovered.
Jacob Boehm, the theosophist, wrote some Reflections on a theological treatise by one Isaiah Stiefel,[6] the title of which puzzled one of his modern French biographers. The word Stiefel in German means a boot, and the Frenchman therefore gave the title of Boehm's tract as ``Reflexions sur les Bottes d'Isaie.''
[6] ``Bedencken <u:>ber Esai<ae> Stiefels Buchlein: von dreyerley Zustandt des Menschen unnd dessen newen Geburt.'' 1639.
It is scarcely fair to make capital out <p 72>of the blunders of booksellers' catalogues, which are often printed in a great hurry, and cannot possibly possess the advantage of correction which a book does. But one or two examples may be given without any censure being intended on the booksellers.
In a French catalogue the works of the famous philosopher Robert Boyle appeared under the following singular French form: BOY (le), Chymista scepticus vel dubia et paradoxa chymico-physica, &c.
``Mr. Tul. Cicero's Epistles'' looks strange, but the mistake is but small. The very natural blunder respecting the title of Shelley's Prometheus Unbound actually did occur; and, what is more, it was expected by Theodore Hook. This is an accurate copy of the description in the catalogue of a year or two back:—
``Shelley's Prometheus Unbound.
—— another copy, in whole calf.'' and these are Hook's lines:—
``Shelley styles his new poem `Prometheus Unbound,'
And 'tis like to remain so while time circles round;
<p 73>For surely an age would be spent in the finding
A reader so weak as to pay for the binding.''
When books are classified in a catalogue the compiler must be peculiarly on his guard if he has the titles only and not the books before him. Sometimes instances of incorrect classification show gross ignorance, as in the instance quoted in the Athen<ae>um lately. Here we have a crop of blunders: ``Title, Commentarii De Bello Gallico in usum Scholarum Liber Tirbius. Author, Mr. C. J. Caesoris. Subject, Religion.'' Still better is the auctioneer's entry of P. V. Maroni's The Opera. Authors, however, are usually so fond of fanciful ear-catching titles, that every excuse must be made for the cataloguer, who mistakes their meaning, and takes them in their literal signification. Who can reprove too severely the classifier who placed Swinburne's Under the Microscope in his class of Optical Instruments, or treated Ruskin's Notes on the Construction of Sheetfolds as a work on agricultural appliances? A late instance of an amusing misclassification is reported from Germany. In the Orientalische <p 74>Bibliographie, Mr. Rider Haggard's wonderful story King Solomon's Mines is entered as a contribution to ``Alttestamentliche Litteratur.''