POPULAR ERRORS Explained and Illustrated. A BOOK FOR OLD AND YOUNG. BY JOHN TIMBS, F.S.A. AUTHOR OF CURIOSITIES OF LONDON, THINGS NOT GENERALLY KNOWN, KENT AND CO. (LATE BOGUE), FLEET STREET. MDCCCLVIII. GENTLE READER, Few of the plans which have of late years been devised for the spread of knowledge, have specifically aimed at the object of the present volume of "THINGS NOt generally KNOWN": "to take us from the track of our nursery mistakes, and, by showing us new objects, or old ones in new lights, to reform our judgments." Expositions of Error, or works exclusively devoted to that purpose, are not so rare in olden as in modern literature. About two hundred years since, SIR THOMAS BROWNE, a man of extensive learning and research, published his volume of Inquiries into Vulgar and Common Errors, which enjoys high reputation to the present day. This work may be said to have first suggested the "POPULAR ERRORS;" though, while I have been stimulated by the zeal of BROWNE, I have not followed his disinclination to admit new positions, or his elaborate study of rare books, or his fondness for the embellishments of classic story and quotation, such as might be expected from a physician of the seventeenth century. To Errors long since exploded I have been content to refer as the antiquities, or curiosities," of the subject, since my object has been to explain the Errors of the present day; even to catch them living as they rise. Moreover, I have striven to make the expositions of practical utility in the business of every-day life. I do not, however, profess to instruct the reader how " to tell the clock by algebra," nor to “drink tea by stratagem:" the aim in the present volume is rather to be accurate and agreeable by way of abstract and table anecdote, so as to become an advantageous and amusing guest at any intellectual fireside. 66 66 By means of condensation-the result of thought-which rejects what no longer appears necessary, the reader is here presented with expositions of Several Hundred Popular Errors; presenting, it is hoped, as many agreeable accessions of novelty, and sources of rational curiosity and amusing research. The present Edition has been in great part rewritten, so as to be in the main a new work. It now forms one of the series of volumes of "THINGS NOT GENERALLY KNOWN." October 1858. I. T. |