GALEN says that man has seven bones in the sternum (instead of three); and Sylvius, in reply to Vesalius, contends that “in days of yore the robust chests of heroes had more bones than men now have.”

GREENE (Robert) speaks of Delphos as an island; But Delphos, or rather Delphi, was a city of Phocis, and no island.  “Six noblemen were sent to the isle of Delphos.”—­Donastus and Faunia.  Probably he confounded the city of Delphi with the isle of Delos.

HALLIWELL, in his Archaic Dictionary, says:  “Crouchmas means Christmas,” and adds that Tusser is his authority.  But this is altogether a mistake.  Tusser, in his “May Remembrances,” says:  “From bull cow fast, till Crouchmas be past,” i.e. St. Helen’s Day.  Tusser evidently means from May 3 (the invention of the Cross) to August 18 (St. Helen’s Day or the Cross-mas), not Christmas.

HIGGONS (Bevil) says: 

  The Cyprian queen, drawn by Apelles hand. 
  Of perfect beauty did the pattern stand! 
  But then bright nymphs from every part of Greece
  Did all contribute to adorn the piece.

To Sir Godfrey Kneller (1780).

Tradition says that Apelles model was either Phyrne, or Campaspe, afterwards his wife.  Campbell has borrowed these lines, but ascribes the painting to Protog’enes the Rhodian.

  When first the Rhodian’s mimic art arrayed
  The queen of Beauty in her Cyprian shade,
  The happy master mingled in the piece
  Each look that charmed him in the fair of Greece.

Pleasures of Hope, ii.

JOHNSON (Dr.) makes Addison speak of Steele as “Little Dicky” whereas the person so called by Addison was not Richard Steele, but a dwarfish actor who played “Gomez” in Dryden’s Spanish Fryar.

LONDON NEWSPAPER (A), one of the leading journals of the day, has spoken three times within two years of “passing under the Caudine Forks,” evidently supposing them to be a “yoke” instead of a valley or mountain pass.

LONGFELLOW calls Erig’ena a Scotchman, whereas the very word means an Irishman.

  Done into Latin by that Scottish beast. 
  Erigena Johannes.

Golden Legend.

“Without doubt, the poet mistook John Duns [Scottus], who died in 1308, for John Scottus [Erigena], who died in 875.  Erigena translated into Latin, St. Dionysius. He was latitudinarian in his views, and anything but ‘a Scottish beast or Calvinist.’”

The Two Angels.  Longfellow crowns the death-angel with amaranth, with which Milton says, “the spirits elect bind their resplendent locks;” and his angel of life he crowns with asphodels, the flowers of Pluto or the grave.

MELVILLE (Whyte) makes a very prominent part of his story called Holmby House turn on the death of a favorite hawk named Diamond, which Mary Cave tossed off, and saw “fall lifeless at the king’s feet” (ch. xxix.).  In ch. xlvi. this very hawk is represented to be alive; “proud, beautiful, and cruel, like a Venus Victrix it perched on her mistress’s wrist, unhooded.”