"Of all species of authorship, faithful and satisfactory biography is the most difficult. The impossibility of being certain of facts is the first stumbling-block; the risk of drawing right conclusions from those you are fortunate enough to obtain, is the next.”—JERDAN. Autobiography.

When Jerdan wrote risk he was thinking of difficulty. To none but a person intent upon drawing wrong conclusions, would it ever occur that there could be any risk in drawing right

ones.

"The tumbling down of fragments from the mountain-side by raging torrents or a partial earthquake."-WILSON. Recreations of Christopher North.

We cannot speak of a thing as being partial, unless we know it as a whole. Now, who ever heard of a whole earthquake? We may say "a violent earthquake;" a "slight earthquake;" but not a "partial earthquake." All earthquakes are partial, and will continue so till the "Crack of Doom."

"The most ancient treatise by a modern on this subject, is said to be by a French physician."-D'ISRAELI. Curiosities of Literature.

This requires no comment. The words " ancient" and "modern" being commonly used in contradistinction to each other, the application of them to the same object is clearly absurd.

Mrs. Foster has a parallel to this, where she remarks:

"Dr. George Campbell's Philosophy of Rhetoric' is con

sidered the best work on the subject, in modern times, since Aristotle."-Handbook of European Literature.

"Richelieu's portrait was encircled by a crown of forty rays, in each of which was written the name of the celebrated forty academicians.”—D'ISRAELI. Curiosities.

What that name is which was common to the forty academicians, D'Israeli does not explain. Piron would have conjectured that it was "moins que rien." It should be "one of the names," or "the name of one," &c.

"Father Mathew, in Ireland, effected a reform, once deemed impossible by Church or State-the Reform of Temperance." -LADY MORGAN. Letter to Cardinal Wiseman.

This is simply Hibernian. In the confusion of her ideas, and her hurry to express them, Lady Morgan puts one thing for another, and would have us believe that what Father Mathew reformed was the virtue of temperance. The expression, "the Temperance Reform" (the reform which results in temperance, or has temperance for its object) would not have been incorrect; but the preposition "of" alters the sense, and its objective case can be no other than the thing that is reformed. We reform vices and not

virtues.

"The ills that darken the life of man have their rise in the malevolence and ill-nature of his fellows."-KIRKE WHITE. Preface to Poems.

Each individual man has a fellow in every other man; but man, expressing, as in the instance

G

before us, the whole human race, has no fellows. The phrase should be:—

"The ills that darken the life of man have their rise in his own malevolence and ill-nature." "James invited him to court, and showered on him, with a prodigal hand, the cornucopia of royal patronage."-D'ISRAELI. Curiosities.

This is what invariably happens to D'Israeli, whenever he goes out of his way for a SamJohnsonish epithet. "To shower a cornucopia is not more correct than "to shoot a quiver,' the contents in each case being what is showered or shot; unless we adopt the Latin metaphor of putting for the contents the thing that contains.

"The age wants a Christendom where the character of Christ-like that of Hamlet-is not omitted by special desire." -GILFILLAN. Literary Portraits.

What has the character of Hamlet to do with Christendom, so as to be either omitted or included therein? This is surely to carry the license of an ellipsis a little too far. Other writers, when introducing this simile, speak of the character of Hamlet in the play.

"Channing's mind was planted as thick with thoughts, as a backwood of his own magnificent land.”—Ibid.

Here is a discovery worthy of the age: a backwood planted with thoughts! What a glorious harvest for the writers of America! Who, after

that, will venture to reproach them with poverty of thought?

"To one so gifted in the prodigality of Heaven, can we approach in any other attitude than that of prostration ?"—Ibid.

The writer here combines, in one action, two attitudes which are simultaneously impossible. A man may approach another, and then prostrate himself; but while he is approaching, he cannot be in an attitude of prostration. Such a feat could only be performed by an individual who had learnt to advance on his belly.

"The separation did not take place till after the language had attained the ripeness of maturity."-TRENCH. English, Past and Present.

As we improve in the "study of words," perhaps some future Trench may be able to point out the difference between "ripeness" and "maturity." According to our "English, Past and Present," these words are as perfectly synonymous as any two in the language.

"The whole physiological theory of Paracelsus consisted, for the most part, in the application of the Cabbala to the explaining of the functions of the body.". SOANE. New Curiosities of Literature.

We sometimes hear of a part being put for the whole; but here we have the whole reduced to a part. Of this confusion of wholes and parts the following affords another notable instance :

"Cervantes soon gave to the world the first part of his

inimitable Don Quixote, and the success of this part quickly led to the production of the whole."-MRS. FOSTER. Handbook of European Literature.

To say that the part already published led to the production of the whole, and not of the remainder, as common sense would suggest, is as much as to say that the part led to its own production!

"William Cobbett was a popular but inconsistent political writer, who wrote upon momentary impulse."-Ibid.

A treatise by Cobbett, upon such a theme as "momentary impulse," is a literary curiosity which has not yet been given to the world.

"I presume that the sentence which the woman underwent was not executed."—ALFRED GATTY, in Notes and Queries.

The blunder here is occasioned by the writer describing the sentence as having been undergone, when he meant to speak of it only as pronounced, or awarded; for if the woman underwent the sentence, it is clear that the sentence must have been executed.

"Sweyn, king of Denmark, and Olauis, king of Norway, invaded England, and spreading themselves in bodies over the kingdom, committed many and cruel depredations."-MERRYBibliomania.

WEATHER.

The writer, of course, though he does not say a word about it, saw with his mind's eye, the two kings, accompanied by their armies; but if this could justify him in describing the kings alone,