FAMILIAR MISQUOTATIONS
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—No misquotation in my experience is so frequent as that of Pope's comparison of creed and conduct. We often find it put thus :- " For forms of faith let fools and bigots fight ; He can't be wrong whose life is in the right."
What Pope did write was (Epist. III., lines 305, 306) :— " For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight, His can't be wrong whose life is in the right."
In the sentiment thus expressed Pope had been anticipated by Cowley, who, writing with regard to Richard Crashaw, said :—
" His faith perhaps in some nice tenets might Be wrong : his life, I'm sure, was in the right."
Curiously enough in his work, Familiar Quotations, Bartlett himself falls into the vulgar error, and, when comparing the lines of Cowley with those of Pope, makes the latter say, " He can't be wrong whose life is in the right."
While on this subject may I add that very few ministers when repeating the Lord's Prayer from memory do so accur- ately, whether they use the Authorized Version of the Bible, or that of the Prayer Book ? The same with the Benediction.
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