"A garret three stories high," is a contradiction in terms. It was the house, and not the garret, that was three stories high.

"The back front of the academy is handsome, but, like the other to the street, one cannot stand back enough to see it in any proportion, unless in a barge moored in the middle of the Thames."-H. WALPOLE. Letter to Mason.

The incongruity here consists in coupling such terms as "back" and "front."

"If a young writer should ask, after all, what is the best way of knowing good poets from bad, the best poets from the next best, and so on? The answer is, the only and twofold way. First, the perusal of the best poets with the greatest attention; and second, the cultivation of that love of truth and beauty which made them what they are."-LEIGH HUNT. Imagination and Fancy.

In this passage the contradiction and absurdity are quite amusing. Hunt tells us there is but one way of knowing good poets from bad, and that that one way is two ways! He then informs us that this only and twofold way is no way at all. To tell a young writer that the way to know good poets from bad, is "to peruse the good," is to suppose him already possessed of the very knowledge he is in search of.

"A working man is more worthy of honour than a titled plunderer who lives in idleness." COBBETT. Grammar.

English

In his anxiety to disparage the aristocracy and bespatter them on all occasions, Cobbett is often betrayed into the use of epithets which his cooler

judgment would have rejected. In the example before us he talks of a plunderer who lives in idleness, without perceiving that his words express a glaring contradiction. True, a man may plunder by means of his agents, as well as in his own person; but with that we have nothing to do here. The terms used are what we must consider; and it is no more consistent with sense to talk of an "idle plunderer," than of an "idle libeller," or an "idle highway robber." One of the expressions implies a state of being which excludes the other.

"There is a certain tune in every language, to which the ear of a native is set, and which often decides on the preferable pronunciation, though entirely ignorant of the reasons for it."-WALKER. Preface to Dictionary.

In this phrase the writer describes a tune, as being ignorant of the reasons for its decision.

"It is certain Warburton's infidelity was greatly suspected." -D'ISRAELI. Quarrels of Authors.

Here, as is usual with this writer, we have the contrary of what he means. He intended to say that Warburton's belief in Christianity was suspected; or that he was suspected of infidelity.

"No one as yet had exhibited the structure of the human kidneys, Vesalius having only examined them in dogs."HALLAM. Literature of Europe.

Human kidneys in dogs! Talk of Irish bulls after that.

"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