Literary Blunders by Henry Benjamin Wheatley
page 35 of 211 (16%)
page 35 of 211 (16%)
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CHAPTER II. BLUNDERS OF AUTHORS. MACAULAY, in his life of Goldsmith in the _Encyclop Britannica_, relates that that author, in the _History of England_, tells us that Naseby is in Yorkshire, and that the mistake was not corrected when the book was reprinted. He further affirms that Goldsmith was nearly hoaxed into putting into the _History of Greece_ an account of a battle between Alexander the Great and Montezuma. This, however, is scarcely a fair charge, for the backs of most of us need to be broad enough to bear the actual blunders we have made throughout life without having to bear those which we almost made. Goldsmith was a very remarkable instance of a man who undertook to write books on subjects of which he knew nothing. Thus, Johnson said that if he |
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