Familiar Misquotations

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIV, Issue 9, 1 March 1906, Page 30

Familiar Misquotations

It seems quite impossible to -eradicate some of the most familiar misquotations, which .have got, so firm a hold on the popular mind that neftner ' dictionaries of quotations nor lectures in the press suffice to set-- them to rights. The London ' Morning Post ' says :—

It is curious to observe how many lines and phrases there are which have been habitually -misquoted for so long a time that the inaccuracy 'has become crystallized and the new form has tatven the place of the old, even with people who profess some love for literature. The young person of average education will glibly quote, ' A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still,' regardless of the fact that conviction is the assent of the will to a particular proposition, and that what Butler wrote was l Jtle that complies against his will is of his own opinion still,' which is not, like the stock version, rank nonsense. Portia does not plead, in the words usually ascribed to her, that mercy ' falleth like the gentle dew from heaven,' but that it 1 droppeth as v the gentle rain from heaven ' ; and Lorenzo, in the same play, distrusts ' the man who hath no music in himself ' — not 'in his soul,' which is the common version. Coleridge did not write ' and not a drop to drink,' but ' not any drop to drink.' Prior's line was not ' small,' but '.fine by degrees and beautifully less.' Gray did not describe the ' even tenor,' but ' the noiseless tenor of their way.' Even our pastors now and then violate the rubric by putting ' just ' before ' cause,' instead of before ' impediment,' in publishing banns of marriage, and more than one biblical passage might be mentioned as being frequently misquoted. Yet time was when a slip of this kind was held to bo almost as discreditable as a false quantity. The familiar miscjuot/ations of Milton's ' Fresh woods and pastures new,' and Pope's ' A little learning is a dangerous thing,' have been deplored times without number, and can never be got rid of.