In all the editions I have seen of this translation, the following very palpable errors exist, which I do not remember to have seen noticed. The first of these errors is contained in book ix. lines 325, 326, 463, and 533,
"Fools that ye are! (the savage thus replies, His inward fury blazing at his _eyes_.)"
"Sing'd are his _brows_: the scorching _lids_ grow black."
"Seest thou these _lids_ that now unfold in vain?"
and consists in Mr. Pope having bestowed two organs of sight on the giant Polypheme.
The second occurs in line 405 of the same book;
"Brain'd on the rock: his _second_ dire repast;"
and is owing to the inadvertency of the translator, who forgets what he had previously written in lines 342 to 348.
"He answer'd with his deed: his bloody hand Snatch'd two, unhappy of my martial band; And dash'd like dogs against the stony floor; The pavement swims with brains and mingled gore. Torn limb from limb, he spreads his horrid feast, And fierce devours it like a mountain beast."
"The task thus finish'd of his morning hours, Two more he snatches, murders, and devours!"
by which it distinctly appears that line 405 has a reference to the _third_ "dire repast" of the Cyclops, instead of the _second_.
Perhaps you will not deem me presumptuous in offering an amendment of these passages by the following substitutions:--
Fools that ye are! (the savage made reply, His inward fury blazing at his eye.)
Sing'd is his brow; the scorching lid grows black.
Brain'd on a rock: his third most dire repast.
Seest thou this lid that now unfolds in vain?
PROVERBIAL SAYINGS AND THEIR ORIGINS--PLAGIARISMS AND PARALLEL PASSAGES.
In a note to Boswell's _Life of Johnson_ (Lond. 1816. 8vo.), iv. 196., the following lines are ascribed to their real authors:--
To _Joh. Baptista Mantuanus_ (Leipz. 1511. 4to), Eclog. i.:--
"Id commune malum, semel insanivimus omnes."
To _Philippe Gaultier_, who flourished in the last half of the 12th century (Lugduni, 1558. 4to. fol. xlij. recto):--
"Incidis in Scillam cupiens vitare Charybdim."
At the conclusion of the same note, the authorship of
"Solamen miseris socios habuisse doloris,"
is said to remain undiscovered; but it appears to be a corrected form of a line in Albertus ab Eyb's _Margarita Poetica_ (Nuremberg, 1472. Fol.), where, with all its false quantities, it is ascribed to Ovid:--