On 9 May 1933, A.E. Housman, Professor of Latin at Trinity College, Cambridge, and a scholar worshipped and hated for his meticulous standards and his appalling sarcasms on the unscholarly, delivered the Leslie Stephen Lecture on 'The Name and Nature of Poetry'. In the course of it he quoted 'O mistress mine, where are you roaming?' and he quoted it as 'where art thou roaming?' He had omitted to verify his memory of something so well-known. He silently put this right on publication. Was one of his colleagues brave enough to draw his attention to the error, or did he correct it himself, perhaps with a faint inward smile?

LRB 2 June 1988 | PDF Download