Stray Leaves of Literature. By Frederick Saunders. (Elliot Stock.)—Keble somewhere
relates that when Dr. Routh, President of Magdalen, was asked by a young man for a piece of advice to carry him through life, the President gravely said : " Always verify quotations." It is a counsel greatly needed by Mr. Saunders, whose misquotations are numerous and unpardonable. In eight familiar lines taken from Milton there are three errors, and two lines quoted from the same author have a mistake in each ; four lines of Coleridge are converted into a couplet, and changed in the process ; a line from Byron is made to halt from the omission of a word ; and an additional syllable spoils a line of Campbell's. "Johnson," said Southey, "may be forgiven all the wrongful decrees he pronounced in criticism, for having preserved this stanza :— " • Verse sweetens toil, however rude the sound, All at her work the village maiden sings s Nor, while she turns the giddy wheel around, Revolves the sad vicissitudes of things.' "
But Southey would not have accepted with so much gratitude Mr. Saunders's pointless version of the second line :-
" She feels no biting pang the while she sings."
Of the thirteen essays forming this little volume, there is not much to be said. They are very brief, which is in their favour, and they are healthy in tone ; but the matter is commonplace where it does not consist of quotations, and there is no charm of style. But style is the very life of the essayist who, like Mr. Saunders, has nothing particular to say ; and if his language fail to please, there is nothing left. The author has not the happy art with which " Stella" credited Swift, of being able to write well upon a broomstick.
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