leven thousand
Virgins were all created out of a blunder. In some ancient MS. they
found _St. Ursula et Undecimilla V. M._ meaning St. Ursula and
_Undecimilla_, Virgin Martyrs; imagining that _Undecimilla_ with the
_V._ and _M._ which followed, was an abbreviation for _Undecem Millia
Martyrum Virginum_, they made out of _Two Virgins_ the whole _Eleven
Thousand_!

Pope, in a note on Measure for Measure, informs us, that its story was
taken from Cinthio's Novels, _Dec._ 8. _Nov._ 5. That is, _Decade 8,
Novel 5._ The critical Warburton, in his edition of Shakspeare, puts the
words in full length thus, _December_ 8, _November 5._

When the fragments of Petronius made a great noise in the literary
world, Meibomius, an erudit of Lubeck, read in a letter from another
learned scholar from Bologna, "We have here _an entire Petronius_; I saw
it with mine own eyes, and with admiration." Meibomius in post-haste is
on the road, arrives at Bologna, and immediately inquires for the
librarian Capponi. He inquires if it were true that they had at Bologna
_an entire Petronius_? Capponi assures him that it was a thing which had
long been public. "Can I see this Petronius? Let me examine
it!"--"Certainly," replies Capponi, and leads our erudit of Lubeck to
the church where reposes _the body of St. Petronius_. Meibomius bites
his lips, calls for his chaise, and takes his flight.

A French translator, when he came to a passage of Swift, in which it is
said that the Duke of Marlborough _broke_ an officer; not being
acquainted with this Anglicism, he translated it _roue_, broke on a
wheel!

Cibber's play of "_Love's Last Shift_" was entitled "_La Derniere
Chemise de l'Amour_." A French writer of Congreve's life has taken his
_Mourning_ for a _Morning_ Bride, and translated it _L'Espouse du
Matin_.

Sir John Pringle mentions his having cured a soldier by the use of two
quarts of _Dog and Duck water_ daily: a French translator specifies it
as an excellent _broth_ made of a duck and a dog! In a recent catalogue
compiled by a French writer of _Works on Natural History_, he has
inserted the well-known "Essay on _Irish Bulls_" by the Edgeworths. The
proof, if it required any, that a Frenchman cannot understand the
idiomatic style of Shakspeare appears in a French translator, who prided
himself on giving a verbal translation of our great poet, not approving
of Le Tourneur's paraphrastical version. He found in the celebrated
speech of Northumbe