. FAMILIAR MISQUOTATIONS
[To the Editor of The SeneT.ermej
"1). H.," in his pleasantly mordant article on lime above attributes " God tempers the wind to the shorn Iamb" to Sterne. Which, of course, is true to an extent ; but Sterne just translated the old French proverb—Dieu ntesurc k vent 4 brebis fondue. So Lord Rosebery remarks that Voltaire appears to have borrowed his pour encourager lcs attires from the Knights of Malta. Certain slaves having hesitated during the Siege of Malta to expose themselves "to a fire more than ordinarily deadly, the Grand Master directed some to be hanged and others to have their cars cut off, pour encourager les attires, as the chroniclers quaintly and simply record" (Porter's History of the Knights of Malta, ii, 272). And Sir Walter borrowed "Sound. sound the clarion," &e., in Old Mortality from an otherwise extremely dull and deservedly dead poem which appeared in an extinct Edinburgh periodical at the beginning of last century. But these are mis- attributions rather than misquotations. I am, Sir. &e.,
M. J. C. M.
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