'"]
_Passage in Cowper's "Task."_--In all early editions of Cowper's _Task_
the opening lines of the 4th book are punctuated as follows:--
"Hark! 'tis the twanging horn! O'er yonder bridge,
(That with its wearisome but needful length
Bestrides the wintry flood, in which the moon
Sees her unwrinkled face reflected bright,)
He comes, the herald of a noisy world," &c.
In modern editions, I believe universally, we find the following
corruption of the passage:--
"Hark! 'tis the twanging horn o'er yonder bridge,
That with," &c.
closing with a colon or period at "bright," and {223} beginning a new
sentence with "He comes;" and thus making the poet use the vulgar
colloquialism "'tis the horn over the bridge," instead of the remark,
that the postman is coming over it.
W.P.P.
* * * * *
NOTES ON BOOKS, SALES, CATALOGUES, ETC.
All who have placed on their shelves--and who that desires to know
thoroughly the history of this country during the period which it
illustrates has not done so--the last edition of _The Diary and
Correspondence of Samuel Pepys_, so ably edited by Lord Braybrooke, have
felt the want of a corresponding edition of _Evelyn's Diary_.
Pages:
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