“The following will show that a palpable absurdity will pass before the eyes of generations of men of letters without notice.  In Boswell’s Life of Johnson (chapter viii. of the edition with chapters), there is given a conversation between Dr. Adams and Johnson, in which the latter asserts that he could finish his Dictionary in three years.

“ADAMS.  ’But the French Academy, which consists of forty members, took forty years to compile their Dictionary.’—­JOHNSON.  ’Sir, thus it is.  This is the proportion.  Let me see:  forty times forty is sixteen hundred, so is the proportion of an Englishman to a Frenchman.’

No one of the numerous editors of Boswell has made a note upon this, although many things as slight have been commented upon:  it was certainly not Johnson’s mistake, for he was a clear-headed arithmetician.  How many of our readers will stare and wonder what we are talking about, and what the mistake is!”

Certes, I for one, plead guilty to staring, and wondering what the Professor is talking about.

I cannot for a moment imagine it possible, that he could base such a criticism, so announced, upon no better foundation than that mere verbal transposition of the words Englishman and Frenchman.

The inversion deceives no person, and it is almost more appropriate to the colloquial jocularity of the great Lexicographer’s bombast than if the enunciation had been more strictly according to rule.  Besides, the correctness of the expression, even as it stand, is capable of defence.  Let the third and fourth terms be understood as referring to time instead of to power, and the proportion becomes “as three to sixteen hundred, so is” (the time required by) “an Englishman to” (that required for the same work by) “a Frenchman.”

Or, if natives be referred to in the plural,—­then, as three to sixteen hundred, so are

    Englishmen to Frenchmen;

that is, such is the number of each required for the same amount of work.

But I repeat that I cannot conceive a criticism so trifling and questionable can have been the true aim of professor de Morgan’s note, and as I am unable to discover any other flaw in the Doctor’s proportion, according to the premises, my query, Mr. Editor, has for its object to learn

    "What the mistake is?"

B.

* * * * *

CARACCIOLI’S LIFE OF LORD CLIVE.

Sir,—­Can you, or any of your readers, give me any information relating to Caraccioli’s Life of Lord Clive?  It is a book in four bulky octavo volumes, without date published, I believe, at different periods, about the year 1780—­perhaps some years later.  It enjoys the distinction of being about the worst book that was ever published.  It bears, on its title-page, the name of “Charles