Budæus, and others, took it for a genuine history; and considered it as highly expedient, that missionaries should be sent thither in order to convert so wise a nation to Christianity."

It was a long while after publication that many readers were convinced that Gulliver's Travels were fictitious.

But the most singular blunder was produced by the ingenious "Hermippus Redivivus" of Dr. Campbell, a curious banter on the hermetic philosophy and the universal medicine, but the grave irony is so well kept up throughout this admirable treatise that it deceived for a length of time the most learned of that day. His notion of the art of prolonging life, by inhaling the breath of young women was eagerly credited. A physician who himself had composed a treatise on health was so influenced by it, that he actually took lodgings at a female boarding school, that he might never be without a constant supply of the breath of young ladies. The late Mr. Thicknesse seriously adopted the project. Dr. Kippis acknowledges that after he read the work in his youth, the reasonings and the facts left him several days in a kind of fairy land. I have a copy with manuscript notes by a learned physician, who seems to have had no doubts of its veracity. After all, the intention of the work was long doubtful; till Dr. Campbell informed a friend it was a

mere jeu d'Esprit; that Bayle was considered as standing without a rival in the art of treating at learg a difficult subject, without discovering to which side his own sentiments leaned; and Dr. Campbell had likewise read more uncommon books than most men; he wished to rival Bayle, and at the same time to give the world much unknown matter. He has admirably succeeded, and with this key, the whole mystery is unlocked.

Palavicini, in his History of the Council of Trent, to confer an honour on M. Lansac, ambassador of Charles IX. to that council, bestows on him a collar of the order of the Saint Esprit ; but which order was not instituted till several years afterwards, by Henry III. A similar voluntary blunder is that of Surita, in his Anales de la Corona de Aragon.. This writer represents, in the battles he describes, many persons who were not present and this, merely to confer honour on some particular families.

A book was written in praise of Ciampini by Ferdinand Fabiani, who, quoting a French narrative of travels in Italy, took for the name of the author the following words, found at the end of the title-page, Enrichi de deux Listes; that is, "Enriched with two Lists;" on this he observes, "that Mr. Enriched with two lists has not failed to do that justice to Ciampini which he merited." The abridgers of Gesner's Bibliotheca ascribe the ro

mance of Amadis to one Acuerdo Olvido; Remembrance, Oblivion. Not knowing that these two words placed on the title-page of the French version of that book, formed the translator's Spanish motto!

D'Aquin, the French king's physician, in his Memoir on the Preparation of Bark, takes Mantissa, which is the title of the Appendix to the History of Plants by Johnstone, for the name of an author, and who, he says, is so extremely rare, that he only knows him by name.

Lord Bolingbroke imagined, that in those famous verses, beginning with Excudent alii, &c. Virgil attributed to the Romans the glory of having surpassed the Greeks in historical composition: according to his idea, those Roman historians, whom Virgil preferred to the Grecians, were Sallust, Livy, and Tacitus. But Virgil died before Livy had written his history, or Tacitus was born.

An honest friar, who compiled a church history, has placed in the class of ecclesiastical writers, Guarini, the Italian poet; this arose from a most risible blunder: on the faith of the title of his celebrated amorous pastoral, Il Pastor fido, "The Faithful Shepherd," our good father imagined that the character of a curate, vicar, or bishop, was represented in this work.

One of the grossest literary blunders of modern times, is that of the late Gilbert Wakefield, in his edition of Pope. He there takes the well known "Song by a Person of Quality," which is a piece of ridicule on the glittering tuneful nonsense of certain poets, as a serious composition. In a most copious commentary, he fatigues himself by tedious arguments to prove that every line seems unconnected with its brothers, and that the whole reflects disgrace on its author, &c. A circumstance which too evidently proves how necessary the knowledge of modern literary history is to a modern commentator, and that those who are profound in verbal Greek, are not the best critics on English writers.

Prosper Marchand has recorded a pleasant mistake of Abbé Bizot, one of the principal medallic historians of Holland. Having met with a medal (struck when Philip II. set forth his invincible Armada) on which was represented the King of Spain, the Emperor, the Pope, Electors, Cardinals, &c. with their eyes covered with a bandage, and bearing for inscription this fine verse of Lucretius:

O Cocas hominum mentes! O pectora cœca!

Prepossessed with the false prejudice, that a nation persecuted by the Pope and his adherents could not represent them without some insult, he

did not examine with sufficient care the ends of the bandages which covered the eyes and waved about the heads of the personages represented on this medal; he rashly took them for asses ears, and as such they are engraved.

Mabillon has preserved a curious literary blunder of some pious Spaniards, who applied to the Pope for consecrating a day in honour of Saint Viar. His holiness, in the voluminous catalogue of his saints, was ignorant of this one. The only proof brought forwards for his existence was this inscription:

S. VIAR.

An antiquary, however, hindered one more festival in the Catholic calendar, by convincing then that these letters were only the remains of an inscription erected for an ancient surveyor of the roads; and he read their saintship thus:

PRÆFECTUS VIARUM.

Maffei, in his comparison between Medals and Inscriptions, detects a literary blunder in Spon, who, meeting with this inscription,

Maxime VI. Consule.

Takes the letters VI for numerals, which occasions a strange anachronism, They are only contractions of Viro Illustri-VI.