64 ERRATA RECEPTA. 



and Theobald edits, without remark, simply " to pinch." — Milton, in 

 one place (Comus, 375 — 380), has imitated this old expression : — 



Wisdom's self 



Oft seeks to sweet retired solitude ; 



Where, with her best nurse, Contemplation, 



She preens her feathers and lets grow her wings, 



That, in the various bustle of resort, 



Were all to-ruffled and sometimes impair'd," 



Two misrenderings, at this place, are exhibited by the editions ; some 

 giving " too," and others " all-to." — We have retained the intensive 

 to in together, the Anglo-Saxon to-gadere, which we make addition- 

 ally strong by placing " all " before it, in our " altogether." Our 

 too is this same particle to, strongly accented. — In my old black-let- 

 ter Bible, of 1615, the language at the place in " Judges," above re- 

 ferred to, is not so antiquated as that of the more recent version. It 

 is quaint, of course, but quite clear in its meaning : " A certaine wo- 

 man cast a piece of milstone upon Abimelech's head, and broke his 

 braine-pan." (With " braine-pan " for " head," compare the Late- 

 Latin and Italian testa : in the first instance, an earthen jar ; and, 

 secondarily, a head. Hence the French tete.) — I have one more in- 

 stance, a very clear and curious one, of a typographical error in the 

 English Bible, that commonly circulates in the community. In this 

 case, not only has a word been altered, and the idea conveyed by the 

 passage changed ; but, in consequence of the difference, a portion of 

 our phraseology in intercourse, one with another, has been burdened 

 with an inaccuracy. " To strain at a gnat " is an expression derived 

 from a passage in St. Matthew (xxiii., 24.), and has become a part of 

 the language of the people. The phrase is the result of an uncor- 

 rected error of the press. It should be " strain out a gnat." More 

 than a hundred years ago, *'out" was here, by some accident, mis- 

 printed " at," in an edition which appears to have been universally 

 followed. The allusion, in the expression, is to the process of puri- 

 fying wine from any extraneous substance that may, by any chance, 

 have fallen into it. A very particular grower, to get rid of the smal- 

 lest insect suspected to be in the " must," will pass and repass whole 

 vats of it most carefully through a straining apparatus. From the 

 precincts of the vineyard, the phrase found its way into the common 

 language of oriental life, to denote an excessive scrupulosity in regard 

 to small matters, especially when conjoined with a want of conscienti- 



