Duncan’s Murder.  Macbeth did not murder Duncan in the castle of Inverness, as stated in the play, but at “the smith’s house,” near Elgin (1039).

Elsinore.  Shakespeare speaks of the beetling cliff of Elsinore, whereas Elsinore has no cliffs at all.

  What if it [the ghost] tempt you toward the flood. 
  Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff
  That beetles o’er its base into the sea?

Hamlet, act i. sc. 4.

The Ghost, in Hamlet, is evidently a Roman Catholic; he talks of purgatory, absolution, and other Catholic dogmas; but the Danes at the time were pagans.

St. Louis.  Shakespeare, in Henry V. act i. sc. 2, calls Louis X.  “St. Louis,” but “St. Louis” was Louis IX.  It was Louis IX. whose “grandmother was Isabel,” issue of Charles de Lorraine, the last of the Carlovingians.  Louis X. was the son of Philippe IV. (le Bel) and grandson of Philippe III. and “Isabel of Aragon,” not Isabel, “heir of Capet of the line of Charles the duke of Lorain.”

Macbeth was no tyrant, as Shakespeare makes him out to be, but a firm and equitable prince, whose title to the throne was better than that of Duncan.

Again, Macbeth was not slain by Macduff at Dunsin’ane, but made his escape from the battle, and was slain in 1056, at Lumphanan.—­Lardner, Cabinet Cyc., 17-19.

In The Winter’s Tale, act v. sc. 2, one of the gentlemen refers to Julio Romano, the Italian artist and architect (1492-1546), certainly some 1800 years or more before Romano was born.

In Twelfth Night, the Illyrian clown speaks of St. Bennet’s Church, London.  “The triplex, sir, is a good tripping measure, or the bells of St. Bennet’s sure may put you in mind:  one, two, three” (act v. sc. 1); as if the duke was a Londoner.

SPENSER. Bacchus or Saturn?  In the Faery Queen, iii. 11, Britomart saw in the castle of Bu’sirane (3 syl.), a picture descriptive of the love of Saturn, who had changed himself into a centaur out of love for Erig’one.  It was not Saturn, but Bacchus who loved Erig’one, and he was not tranformed into a centaur, but to a horse.

Beone or Oenone?  In bk. vi. 9 (Faery Queen) the lady-love of Paris is called Benone, which ought to be Oenone.  The poet says that Paris was “by Plexippus’ brook” when the golden apple was brought to him; but no such brook is mentioned by any classic author.

Critias and Socrates.  In bk. ii. 7 (Faery Queen) Spenser says:  “The wise Socrates ... poured out his life ... to the dear Critias; his dearest bel-amie.”  It was not Socrates, but Theram’enes, one of the thirty tyrants, who in quaffing the poison-cup, said smiling, “This I drink to the health of fair Critias.”—­Cicero, Tusculan Questions.

Critias or Crito?  In Faery Queen, iv. (introduction), Spenser says that Socrates often discoursed of love to his friend Critias; but it was Crito, or rather Criton that the poet means.