MILTON ON "FAME."
[To THE EDITOR OF THE “SPEOTATOR:1 Szn,—An amusing instance of the slipperiness of familiar quotations occurs in a letter in your number of January 19th (p. 87). In my little book, "Memories, &c.," I quoted the well-known line of Lycidas, 71, quite correctly
That last infirmity of noble mind."
Your reviewer of my book misquoted it thus
" That last infirmity of noble minds."
Last Saturday Mr. Reginald Haines took the trouble to write to you to correct your reviewer and me, or one of us, for
misquoting "minds" instead of "mind." He says: "The verse, of course, should run,—
' The last infirmity of noble mind?"
No! it should not. "That," not " the" : "mind," not "minds." Your reviewer and Mr. Haines both quote the line wrong. I was right, as I always verify quotations.—I am,
P.S.—I fail to see with your reviewer how a passage from Tacitus can show that Milton's line is not "inimitable," as I said it was. Nor, with Mr. Reginald Haines, can I see that a further quotation from Front° can prove the point. Thousands of people quote Milton's line—almost invariably wrongly, as it would seem—who never read Tacitus or ever heard of Fronto. It is the gem-like sparkle of phrase which makes Zycidas "
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