S. VIAR.

An antiquary, however, hindered one more festival in the Catholic calendar by convincing them that these letters were only the remains of an inscription erected for p 17an ancient surveyor of the roads; and he read their saintship thus:—­

          [PREFECTV]S VIAR[VM].’’

Foreign travellers in England have usually made sad havoc of the names of places.  Hentzner spelt Gray’s Inn and Lincoln’s Inn phonetically as Grezin and Linconsin, and so puzzled his editor that he supposed these to be the names of two giants.  A similar mistake to this was that of the man who boasted that ``not all the British House of Commons, not the whole bench of Bishops, not even Leviticus himself, should prevent him from marrying his deceased wife’s sister.’’ One of the jokes in Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn (ch. xxiii.) turns on the use of this same expression ``Leviticus himself.’’

The picturesque writer who draws a well-filled-in picture from insufficient data is peculiarly liable to fall into blunders, and when he does fall it is not surprising that less imaginative writers should chuckle over his fall.  A few years ago an American editor is said to have received the telegram ``Oxford Music Hall p 18burned to the ground.’’ There was not much information here, and he was ignorant of the fact that this building was in London and in Oxford Street, but he was equal to the occasion.  He elaborated a remarkable account of the destruction by fire of the principal music hall of academic Oxford.  He told how it was situated in the midst of historic colleges which had miraculously escaped destruction by the flames.  These flames, fanned into a fury by a favourable wind, lit up the academic spires and groves as they ran along the rich cornices, lapped the gorgeous pillars, shrivelled up the roof and grasped the mighty walls of the ancient building in their destructive embraces.

In 1882 an announcement was made in a weekly paper that some prehistoric remains had been found near the Church of San Francisco, Florence.  The note was reproduced in an evening paper and in an antiquarian monthly with words in both cases implying that the locality of the find was San Francisco, California.  It is a common mistake of those who p 19have heard of Grolier bindings to suppose that the eminent book collector was a binder; but this is nothing to that of the workman who told the writer of this that he had found out the secret of making the famous Henri II. or Oiron ware. ``In fact,’’ he added, ``I could make it as well as Henry Deux himself.’’ The idea of the king of France working in the potteries is exceedingly fine.