ignorant of country life and country animals, that the first time he heard a _cock_ crow, he called it _neighing_. If such a mistake had been made by an Irishman, it would surely have been called a bull: it has, at least, as good pretensions to the title as many mistakes made by ignorant Hibernians; for instance, the well-known blunder relative to the sphinx:--An uninformed Irishman, hearing the sphinx alluded to in company whispered to a friend, “The sphinx! who is that now?” “A monster-man.” “Oh, a _Munster_-man: I thought he was from Connaught,” replied our Irishman, determined not to seem totally unacquainted with the family. Gross and ridiculous as this blunder appears, we are compelled by candour to allow, that the affectation of showing knowledge has betrayed to shame men far superior to our Hibernian, both in reputation and in the means of acquiring knowledge. Cardinal Richelieu, the Maecenas or would-be Maecenas of France, once mistook the name of a noted grammarian, _Maurus Terentianus_, for a play of Terence’s. This is called by the French writer who records it, “une _bévue_ bien grossière.” However gross, a mistake can never be made into a bull. We find _bévues_ French, English, Italian, German, Latin, and Greek, of theologians, historians, antiquaries, poets, critics, and translators, without end. The learned Budaeus takes Sir Thomas More’s Utopia for a true history; and proposes sending missionaries to work the conversion of so wise a people as the Utopians. An English antiquary[35] mistakes a tomb in a Gothic cathedral for the tomb of Hector. Pope, our great poet, and prince of translators, mistakes _Dec. the 8th, Nov. the 5th_, of Cinthio, for Dec. 8th, Nov. 5th; and Warburton, his learned critic, improves upon the blunder, by afterward writing the words December and November at full length. Better still, because more comic, is the blunder of a Frenchman, who, puzzled by the title of one of Cibber’s plays, “Love’s Last Shift,” translates it “La Dernière Chemise de l’Amour.” We laugh at these mistakes, and forget them; but who can forget the blunder of the Cork almanack-maker, who informs the world that the principal republics in _Europe_, are Venice, Holland, and _America_? The blunders of men of all countries, except Ireland, do not affix an indelible stigma upon individual or national character. A free pardon is, and ought to be, granted by every Englishman to the vernacular and literary errors of those who have the happiness to be born subjects of Great Britain. What enviable privileges are annexed to the birth of an Englishman! and what a misfortune it is to be a native of Ireland! CHAPTER IV. LITTLE DOMINICK. We have laid down the general law of bulls and blunders; but, as there is no rule without an exception, we may perhaps allow an exception in favour of little Dominick.