SCRIPTURAL KNOWLEDGE IN THE PRESS.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]
SIR,—One of your correspondents in the Spectator for January 11th, referring to the substitution of "coppersmiths" for " silversmiths " in the London reports of Sir William Harcourt's speech at Derby, mentions a suggestion that the mistake may have been due to "the fact that neither the reporting nor the Scriptural knowledge of the London men was equal to that of their humbler country brethren." Are we to attribute it to the same (alleged) fact that in the report given by the Times, the St. James's Gazette, and no doubt by other London papers, of Sir M. E. Grant-Duff's address to the Richmond Athemcum on the "Life and Writings of Mr. Matthew Arnold," Mr. Arnold's pathetic entries in his diary in April, 1888, are said to be put together from Ecclesiastes ? The source of these quotations was, of course, Ecelesiasticus (cxxxviii, vv. 18, 22, 24). It is possible, but not likely, that Sir Mountstuart may himself have hastily misread in Mr. Arnold's MS. "Ecclus." into the more familiar "Eccles." Even your vigilance, Mr. Editor, was at fault; for I notice that the error is transferred without correction to your own columns.—I am Sir, &c., The Athenieum Club, January 13th. J. G. GREENWOOD.
[Sir Mountstttart made no error. The Times reporter was in fault, and the Spectator (as well as the Guardian) hastily copied instead of correcting the blunder.—En. Spectator.1
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