Literary Blunders: A Chapter in the "History of Human Error"

The translator of Inter Calicem supremaque labra as Betwixt Dover and Calais gave as his reason that Dover was Angli<ae> suprema labra.

Although not a blunder nor apparently a joke, we may conclude this chapter with a reference to Shakespeare's remarkable translation of Finis Coronat opus. Helena remarks in All's well that Ends well (act iv., sc. 4):— ``All's well that ends well: still the fine's the crown.''

In the Second Part of King Henry VI. (act v., sc. 2) old Lord Clifford, just before he dies, is made to use the French translation of the proverb:—

``La fin couronne les <oe>uvres.''

In the first Folio we read:—

``La fin corrone les eumenes.''

CHAPTER IV.

BIBLIOGRAPEIICAL BLUNDERS.

THERE is no class that requires to be dealt with more leniently than do bibliographers, for pitfalls are before and behind them. It is impossible for any one man to see all the books he describes in a general bibliography; and, in consequence of the necessity of trusting to second-hand information, he is often led imperceptibly into gross error. Watt's Bibliotheca Britannica is a most useful and valuable work, but, as may be expected from so comprehensive a compilation, many mistakes have crept into it: for instance, under the head of Philip Beroaldus, we find the following title of a work: ``A short view of the Persian Monarchy, published at the end of Daniel's Works.'' The mystery of the last part of the title is cleared up when we find that it should properly be read, ``and of Daniel's Weekes,'' it being a work on prophecy. The librarian of the old Marylebone Institution, knowing as little of Latin as the monk did of Hebrew when he described a book as having the beginning where the end should be, catalogued an edition of <AE>sop's Fables as ``<AE>sopiarum's Ph<oe>dri Fabulorum.''

Two blunders that a bibliographer is very apt to fall into are the rolling of different authors of the same name into one, and the creation of an author who never existed. The first kind we may illustrate by mentioning the dismay of the worthy Bishop Jebb, when he found himself identified in Watt's Bibliotheca with his uncle, the Unitarian writer. Of the second kind we might point out the names of men whose lives have been written and yet who never existed. In the Zoological Biography of Agassiz, published by the Ray Society, there is an imaginary author, by name J. K. Broch, whose work, Entomologische Briefe, was published in 1823. This pamphlet is really anonymous, and was written by one who signed himself J. K. Broch, is merely an explanation in the catalogue from which the entry was taken that it was a brochure. Moreri created an author, whom he styled Dorus Basilicus, out of the title of James I.'s <gr D<w^>ron basilik<o'>n>, and Bishop Walton supposed the title of the great Arabic Dictionary, the Kamoos or Ocean, to be the name of an author whom he quotes as ``Camus.'' In the article on Stenography in Rees's Cyclop<ae>dia there are two most amusing blunders. John Nicolai published a Treatise on the Signs of the Ancients at the beginning of the last century, and the writer of the article, having seen it stated that a certain fact was to be found in Nicolai, jumped to the conclusion that it was the name of a place, and wrote, ``It was at Nicolai that this method of writing was first introduced to the Greeks by Xenophon himself.'' Tn another part of the same article the oldest method of shorthand extant, entitled ``Ars Scribendi Characteris,'' is said to have been printed about the year 1412—that is, long before printing was invented. In the Biographie Universelle there is a life of one Nicholas Donis, by Baron Walckenaer, which is a blundering alteration of the real name of a Benedictine monk called Dominus Nicholas. This, however, is not the only time that a title has been taken for a name. An eminent bookseller is said to have received a letter signed George Winton, proposing a life of Pitt; but, as he did not know the name, he paid no attention to the letter, and was much astonished when he was afterwards told that his correspondent was no less a person than George Pretyman Tomline, Bishop of Winchester. This is akin to the mistake of the Scotch doctor attending on the Princess Charlotte during her illness, who said that ``ane Jean Saroom'' had been continually calling, but, not knowing the fellow, he had taken no notice of him. Thus the Bishop of Salisbury was sent away by one totally ignorant of his dignity. A similar blunder was made by a bibliographer, for in Hotten's Handbook to the Topography and Family History of England and Wales will be found an entry of an ``Assize Sermon by Bishop Wigorn, in the Cathedral at Worcester, 1690.'' This was really Bishop Stillingfleet. There is a reverse case of a catalogue made by a worthy bookseller of the name of William London, which was long supposed to be the work of Dr. William Juxon, the Bishop of London at the time of publication. The entry in the Biographie Moderne of ``Brigham le jeune ou Brigham Young'' furnishes a fine instance of a writer succumbing to the ever-present temptation to be too clever by half. A somewhat similar blunder is that of the late Mr. Dircks. The first reprint of the Marquis of Worcester's Century of Inventions was issued by Thomas Payne, the highly respected bookseller of the Mews Gate, in 1746; but in Worcesteriana (1866) Mr. Dircks positively asserts that the notorious Tom Paine was the publisher of it, thus ignoring the different spelling of the two names.

In a French book on the invention of printing, the sentence ``Le berceau de l'imprimerie'' was misread by a German, who turned Le Berceau into a man{.??} D'Israeli tells us that Mantissa, the title of the Appendix to Johnstone's History of Plants, was taken for the name of an author by D'Aquin, the French king's physician. The author of the Curiosities of Literature also relates that an Italian misread the description Enrichi de deux listes on the title-page of a French book of travels, and, taking it for the author's name, alluded to the opinions of Mons. Enrichi De Deux Listes; but really this seems almost too good to be true.

If we searched bibliographical literature we should find a fair crop of authors who never existed; for when once a blunder of this kind is set going, it seems to bear a charmed life. Mr. Daydon Jackson mentions some amusing instances of imaginary authors made out of title-pages in his Guide to the Literature of Botany. An anonymous work of A. Massalongo, entitled Graduale Passagio delle Crittogame alle Fanerogame (1876), has been entered in a German bibliography as written by G. Passagio. In an English list Kelaart's Flora Calpensis: Reminiscences of Gibraltar (1846) appears as the work of a lady— Christian name, Flora; surname, Calpensis. In 1837 a Botanical-Lexicon was published by an author who described himself as ``The Rev. Patrick Keith, Clerk, F.L.S.'' This somewhat pedantic form deceived a foreign cataloguer, who took Clerk for the surname, and contracted ``Patrick Keith'' into the initials P.K. More inexcusable was the blunder of an American who, in describing J. E. H. Gordon's work on Electricity, changed the author's degree into the initials of a collaborator, one Cantab. The joint authors were stated to be J. E. H. Gordon and B. A. Cantab.

A very amusing, but a quite excusable error, was made by Allibone in his Dictionary of English Literature, under the heading of Isaac D'Israeli. He notices new editions of that author's works revised by the Right Hon. the Chancellor of the Exchequer, of course Isaac's son Benjamin, afterwards Prime Minister and Earl of Beaconsfield; but unfortunately there were two Chancellors in 1858, and Allibone chooses the wrong one, printing, as useful information to the reader, that the reviser was Sir George Cornewall Lewis. An instance of the danger of inconsiderate explanation will be found in a little book by a German lady, Fanny Lewald, entitled England and Schottland. The authoress, when in London, visited the theatre in order to see a play founded on Cooper's novel The Wept of Wish-ton Wish; and being unable to understand the title, she calls it the ``Will of the Whiston Wisp,'' which she tells us means an ignis fatuus.

A writer in a German paper was led into an amusing blunder by an English review a few years ago. The reviewer, having occasion to draw a distinction between George and Robert Cruikshank, spoke of the former as the real Simon Pure. The German, not understanding the allusion, gravely told his readers that George Cruikshank was a pseudonym, the author's real name being Simon Pure. This seems almost too good to be equalled, but a countryman of our own has blundered nearly as grossly. William Taylor, in his Historic Survey of German Poetry (1830), prints the following absurd statement: ``Godfred of Berlichingen is one of the earliest imitations of the Shakspeare tragedy which the German school has produced. It was admirably translated into English in 1799 at Edinburg by William Scott, advocate, no doubt the same person who, under the poetical but assumed name of Walter, has since become the most extensively popular of the British writers.'' The cause of this mistake we cannot explain, but the reason for it is to be found in the fact which has lately been announced that a few copies of the translation, with the misprint of William for Walter in the title, were issued before the error was discovered.

Jacob Boehm, the theosophist, wrote some Reflections on a theological treatise by one Isaiah Stiefel,[6] the title of which puzzled one of his modern French biographers. The word Stiefel in German means a boot, and the Frenchman therefore gave the title of Boehm's tract as ``Reflexions sur les Bottes d'Isaie.''

[6] ``Bedencken <u:>ber Esai<ae> Stiefels Buchlein: von dreyerley Zustandt des Menschen unnd dessen newen Geburt.'' 1639.

It is scarcely fair to make capital out of the blunders of booksellers' catalogues, which are often printed in a great hurry, and cannot possibly possess the advantage of correction which a book does. But one or two examples may be given without any censure being intended on the booksellers.

In a French catalogue the works of the famous philosopher Robert Boyle appeared under the following singular French form: BOY (le), Chymista scepticus vel dubia et paradoxa chymico-physica, &c.

``Mr. Tul. Cicero's Epistles'' looks strange, but the mistake is but small. The very natural blunder respecting the title of Shelley's Prometheus Unbound actually did occur; and, what is more, it was expected by Theodore Hook. This is an accurate copy of the description in the catalogue of a year or two back:—

``Shelley's Prometheus Unbound.

—— another copy, in whole calf.'' and these are Hook's lines:—

``Shelley styles his new poem `Prometheus Unbound,'
And 'tis like to remain so while time circles round;
For surely an age would be spent in the finding
A reader so weak as to pay for the binding.''

When books are classified in a catalogue the compiler must be peculiarly on his guard if he has the titles only and not the books before him. Sometimes instances of incorrect classification show gross ignorance, as in the instance quoted in the Athen<ae>um lately. Here we have a crop of blunders: ``Title, Commentarii De Bello Gallico in usum Scholarum Liber Tirbius. Author, Mr. C. J. Caesoris. Subject, Religion.'' Still better is the auctioneer's entry of P. V. Maroni's The Opera. Authors, however, are usually so fond of fanciful ear-catching titles, that every excuse must be made for the cataloguer, who mistakes their meaning, and takes them in their literal signification. Who can reprove too severely the classifier who placed Swinburne's Under the Microscope in his class of Optical Instruments, or treated Ruskin's Notes on the Construction of Sheetfolds as a work on agricultural appliances? A late instance of an amusing misclassification is reported from Germany. In the Orientalische Bibliographie, Mr. Rider Haggard's wonderful story King Solomon's Mines is entered as a contribution to ``Alttestamentliche Litteratur.''

The elaborate work by Careme, Le Patissier Pittoresque (1842), which contains designs for confectioners, deceived the bookseller from its plates of pavilions, temples, etc., into supposing it to be a book on architecture, and he accordingly placed it under that heading in his catalogue.

Mr. Daydon Jackson gives several instances of false classification in his Guide to the Literature of Botany, and remarks that some authors contrive titles seemingly of set purpose to entrap the unwary. He instances a fine example in the case of Bishop Alexander Ewing's Feamainn Earraghaidhiell: Argyllshire Seaweeds (Glasgow, 1872. 8vo). To enhance the delusion, the coloured wrapper is ornamented with some of the common marine alg<ae>, but the inside of the volume consists solely of pastoral addresses. Another example will be found in Flowers from the South, from the Hortus Siccus of an Old Collector. By W. H. Hyett, F.R.S. Instead of a popular work on the Mediterranean flora by a scientific man, as might reasonably be expected, this is a volume of translations from the Italian and Latin poets. It is scarcely fair to blame the compiler of the Bibliotheca Historio-Naturalis for having ranked both these works among scientific treatises. The English cataloguer who treated as a botanical book Dr. Garnett's selection from Coventry Patmore's poems, entitled Florilegium Amantis, could claim less excuse for his blunder than the German had. These misleading titles are no new invention, and the great bibliographer Haller was deceived into including the title of James Howell's Dendrologia, or Dodona's Grove (1640), in his Bibliotheca Botanica. Professor Otis H. Robinson contributed a very interesting paper on the ``Titles of Books'' to the Special Report on Public Libraries in the United States of America (1876), in which he deals very fully with this difficulty of misleading titles, and some of his preliminary remarks are very much to the point. He writes:—

``No act of a man's life requires more practical common sense than the naming of his book. If he would make a grocer's sign or an invoice of a cellar of goods or a city directory, he uses no metaphors; his pen does not hesitate for the plainest word. He must make himself understood by common men. But if he makes a book the case is different. It must have the charm of a pleasing title. If there is nothing new within, the back at least must be novel and taking. He tortures his imagination for something which will predispose the reader in its favour. Mr. Parker writes a series of biographical sketches, and calls it Morning Stars of the New World. Somebody prepares seven religious essays, binds them up in a book, and calls it Seven Stormy Sundays. Mr. H. T. Tuckerman makes a book of essays on various subjects, and calls it The Optimist; and then devotes several pages of preface to an argument, lexicon in hand, proving that the applicability of the term optimist is `obvious.' An editor, at intervals of leisure, indulges his true poetic taste for the pleasure of his friends, or the entertainment of an occasional audience. Then his book appears, entitled not Miscellaneous Poems, but Asleep in the Sanctum, by A. A. Hopkins. Sometimes, not satisfied with one enigma, another is added. Here we have The Great Iron Wheel; or, Republicanism Backwards and Christianity Reversed, by J. R. Graves. These titles are neither new nor scarce, nor limited to any particular class of books. Every case, almost every shelf, in every library contain such. They are as old as the art of book-making. David's lamentation over Saul and Jonathan was called The Bow. A single word in the poem probably suggested the name. Three of the orations of <AE>schines were styled The Graces, and his letters The Muses.''

The list of bibliographical blunders might be indefinitely extended, but the subject is somewhat technical, and the above few instances will give a sufficient indication of the pitfalls which lie in the way of the bibliographer—a worker who needs universal knowledge if he is to wend his way safely through the snares in his path.

CHAPTER V.

LISTS OF ERRATA.

THE errata of the early printed books are not numerous, and this fact is easily accounted for when we recollect that these books were superintended in their passage through the press by scholars such as the Alduses, Andreas, Bishop of Aleria, Campanus Perottus, the Stephenses, and others. It is said that the first book with a printed errata is the edition of Juvenal, with notes of Merula, printed by Gabriel Pierre, at Venice, in 1478; previously the mistakes had been corrected by the pen. One of the longest lists of errata on record, which occupies fifteen folio pages, is in the edition of the works of Picus of Mirandula, printed by Knoblauch, at Strasburg, in 1507. A worse case of blundering will be found in a little book of only one hundred and seventy-two pages, entitled Miss<ae> ac Missalis Anatomia, 1561, which contains fifteen pages of errata. The author, feeling that such a gross case of blundering required some excuse or explanation, accounted for the misprints by asserting that the devil drenched the manuscript in the kennel, making it almost illegible, and then obliged the printer to misread it. We may be allowed to believe that the fiend who did all the mischief was the printer's ``devil.''

Cardinal Bellarmin tried hard to get his works printed correctly, but without success, and in 1608 he was forced to publish at Ingolstadt a volume entitled Recognitio librorum omnium Roberti Belarmini, in which he printed eighty-eight pages of errata of his Controversies.

Edward Leigh, in his thin folio volume entitled On Religion and Learning, 1656, was forced to add two closely printed leaves of errata.

Sometimes apparent blunders have been intentionally made; thus, to escape the decree of the Inquisition that the words fatum and fata should not be used in any work, a certain author printed facta in his book, and added in the errata ``for facta read fata.''

In dealing with our own older literature we find a considerable difference in degree of typographical correctness; thus the old plays of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are often marvels of inaccuracy, and while books of the same date are usually supplied with tables of errata, plays were issued without any such helps to correction. This to some extent is to be accounted for by the fact that many of these plays were surreptitious publications, or, at all events, printed in a hurry, without care. The late Mr. Halliwell Phillipps, in his curious privately printed volume (A Dictionary of Misprints, 1887), writes: ``Such tests were really a thousandfold more necessary in editions of plays, but they are practically non-existent in the latter, the brief one which is prefixed to Dekker's Satiro-Mastix, 1602, being nearly the only example that is to be found in any that appeared during the literary career of the great dramatist.''

In other branches of literature it is evident that some care was taken to escape misprints, either by the correction of the printer's reader or of the author. Some of the excuses made for misprints in our old books are very amusing. In a little English book of twenty-six leaves printed at Douay in 1582, and entitled A true reporte of the death and martyrdome of M. Campion Jesuite and Preiste, and M. Sherwin and M. Bryan Preistes, at Tiborne the first of December 1581, is this notice at the end:—

``Good reader, pardon all faultes escaped in the printing and beare with the woorkmanship of a strainger.''

Many of Nicholas Breton's tracts were issued surreptitiously, and he protested that many pieces which he had never written were falsely ascribed to him. The Bower of Delights was published without the author's sanction, and the printer (or publisher) Richard Jones made the following address ``to the Gentlemen Readers'' on the blunders which had been made in the book:—

``Pardon mee (good Gentlemen) of my presumption, & protect me, I pray you, against those Cavellers and findfaults, that never like of any thing that they see printed, though it be never so well compiled. And where you happen to find fault, impute it to bee committed by the Printers negligence, then (otherwise) by any ignorance in the author: and especially in A 3, about the middest of the page, for LIME OR LEAD I pray you read LINE OR LEAD. So shall your poore Printer haue just cause hereafter to be more carefull, and acknowledge himselfe most bounden (at all times) to do your service to the utmost of his power. ``Yours R. J., PRINTER.''

A little scientific book, entitled The Making and use of the Geometricall Instrument called a Sector . . . by Thomas Hood, 1598, has a list of errata headed Faultes escaped, with this note of the author or printer:—

``Gentle reader, I pray you excuse these faults, because I finde by experience, that it is an harder matter to print these mathematicall books trew, then bookes of other discourse.''

Arthur Hopton's Baculum Geod<ae>ticum sive Viaticum or the Geodeticall Staffe (1610), contains the following quaint lines at the head of the list of errata:—

          ``The Printer to the Reader.
``For errours past or faults that scaped be,
     Let this collection give content to thee:
A worke of art, the grounds to us unknowne,
     May cause us erre, thoughe all our skill be showne.
When points and letters, doe containe the sence,
     The wise may halt, yet doe no great offence.
Then pardon here, such faults that do befall,
     The next edition makes amends for all.''

Thomas Heywood, the voluminous dramatist, added to his Apology for Actors (1612) an interesting address to the printer of his tract, which, besides drawing attention to the printer's dislike of his errors being called attention to in a table of errata, is singularly valuable for its reference to Shakespeare's annoyance at Jaggard's treatment of him by attributing to his pen Heywood's poems from Great Britain's Troy.

``To my approved good Friend, ``MR. NICHOLAS OKES. ``The infinite faults escaped in my booke of Britaines Troy by the negligence of the printer, as the misquotations, mistaking the sillables, misplacing halfe lines, coining of strange and never heard of words, these being without number, when I would have taken a particular account of the errata, the printer answered me, hee would not publish his owne disworkemanship, but rather let his owne fault lye upon the necke of the author. And being fearefull that others of his quality had beene of the same nature and condition, and finding you, on the contrary, so carefull and industrious, so serious and laborious to doe the author all the rights of the presse, I could not choose but gratulate your honest indeavours with this short remembrance. Here, likewise, I must necessarily insert a manifest injury done me in that worke, by taking the two epistles of Paris to Helen, and Helen to Paris, and printing them in a lesse volume under the name of another, which may put the world in opinion I might steale them from him, and hee, to doe himselfe right, hath since published them in his owne name; but as I must acknowledge my lines not worthy his patronage under whom he hath publisht them, so the author, I know, much offended with M. Jaggard (that altogether unknowne to him) presumed to make so bold with his name. These and the like dishonesties I knowe you to bee cleere of; and I could wish but to bee the happy author of so worthy a worke as I could willingly commit to your care and workmanship. ``Yours ever, THOMAS HEYWOOD.''

In the eighteenth century printers and authors had become hardened in their sins, and seldom made excuses for the errors of the press, but in the seventeenth century explanations were frequent.

Silvanus Morgan, in his Horologiographia
Optica. Dialling Universall and
Particular, Speculative and Practicall,
London 1652, comes before his readers
with these remarks on the errata:—

``Reader I having writ this some years since, while I was a childe in Art, and by this appear to be little more, for want of a review hath these faults, which I desire thee to mend with thy pen, and if there be any errour in art, as in chap. 17 which is only true at the time of the Equinoctiall, take that for an oversight, and where thou findest equilibra read equilibrio, and in the dedication (in some copies) read Robert Bateman for Thomas, and side for signe and know that Optima prima cadunt, pessimus <ae>ve manent.''

The list of errata in Joseph Glanvill's Essays on several important subjects in Philosophy and Religion (1676) is prefixed by this note:—

``The Reader is desired to take notice of the following Errours of the Press, some of which are so near in sound, to the words of the author, that they may easily be mistaken for his.''

The next two books to be mentioned were published in the same year—1679. The noble author referred to in the first is that Roger Palmer who had the dishonour of being the husband of Charles II.'s notorious mistress, the Countess of Castlemaine. Fortunately for the Earl she no longer bore his name, as she was created Duchess of Cleveland in 1670. Professor De Morgan was inclined to doubt Lord Castlemaine's authorship, but the following remarks by Joseph Moxon seem to prove that the peer did produce a rough draft of some kind:—

``Postscript concerning the Erratas and the Geographical part of this Globe,'' prefixed to The English Globe . . . by the Earl of Castlemaine:—

``The Erratas of the Press being many, I shall not set them down in a distinct Catalogue as usually, least the sight of them should more displease, than the particulars advantage, especially since they are not so material or intricate, but that any man may (I hope) easily mend them in the reading. I confess I have bin in a manner the occasion of them, by taking from the noble author a very foul copy, when he desir'd me to stay till a fair one were written over, so that truly 'tis no wonder, if workmen should in these cases not only sometimes leave out, but adde also, by taking one line for another, or not observing with exactness what words have bin wholly obliterated or dasht out.''

John Playford, the music publisher and author, makes some remarks on the subject of misprints in the preface to his Vade Mecum, or the Necessary Companion (1679), which are worth quotation here:—

``My profession obliging me to be conversant with mathematical Books (the printing whereof and musick, has been my chiefest employment), I have observ'd two things many times the cause why Books of this nature appear abroad not so correct as they should be; either 1 Because they are too much hastened from the Press, and not time enough allowed for the strict and deliberate examination of them; which in all books ought to be done, especially in these, for as much as one false figure in a Mathematical book, may prove a greater fault than a whole word mistake in books of another kind. Or, 2 Because Persons take Tables upon trust without trying them, and with them transcribe their errors, if not increase them. Both these I have carefully avoided, so that I have reason to believe (and think I may say it without vanity) there never was Tables more exactly printed than in this Book, especially those for money and annuities, for not trusting to my first calculation of them, I new calculated every Table when it was in print, by the first printed sheet, and when I had so done I strictly compared it with my first calculation.''

De Morgan registers the nineteenth edition of this book, dated 1756, in his Arithmetical Books, and he did not apparently know that it was originally published so early as 1679.

In Morton's Natural History of Northamptonshire (1712), is a list headed ``Some Errata of the press to be corrected''; and at the end of the list is the following amusing note: ``There is no cut of the Hen of the lesser Py'd Brambling in Tab. 13 tho' 'tis referred to in p. 423 which omission was owing to an accident and is really not very material, the hen of that bird differing but little from the cock which is represented in that Table under fig. 3.''

There is a very prevalent notion that authors did not correct the proofs of their books in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but there is sufficient evidence that this is altogether a mistake. Professor De Morgan, with his usual sagacity, alludes to this point in his Arithmetical Books (1847): ``A great many circumstances induce me to think that the general fashion of correcting the press by the author came in with the seventeenth century or thereabouts.'' And he instances this note on the title-page of Richard Witt's Arithmetical Questions (1613): ``Examined also and corrected at the Presse by the author himselfe.''

The late Dr. Brinsley Nicholson raised this question in Notes and Queries in 1889, and by his research it is possible to antedate the practice by nearly forty years. For several of the following quotations I am indebted to that invaluable periodical. In Scot's Hop-Garden (1574) we find the following excuse:—

``Forasmuch as M. Scot could not be present at the printing of this his booke, whereby I might have used his advice in the correction of the same, and especiallie of the Figures and Portratures conteyned therein, whereof he delivered unto me such notes as I being unskilfull in the matter could not so thoroughly conceyve, nor so perfectly expresse as . . . the authour or you.''

In The Droomme of Doomes Day. By
George Gascoigne (1576) is:—

``An Aduertisement of the Prynter to the Reader.

``Understand (gentle Reader) that whiles this worke was in the presse it pleased God to visit the translatour thereof with sicknesse. So that being unable himselfe to attend the dayly proofes, he apoynted a seruaunt of his to ouersee the same. Who being not so well acquainted with the matter as his maister was, there haue passed some faultes much contrary unto both our meanings and desires. The which I have therefore collected into this Table. Desiring every Reader that wyll vouchsafe to peruse this booke, that he will firste correct those faultes and then judge accordingly.''

A particularly interesting note on this point precedes the list of errata in Stanyhurst's Translation of Virgil's <AE>neid (1582), which was printed at Leyden. Mr. F. C. Birkbeck Terry, who pointed this out in Notes and Queries, quoted from Arber's reprint, p. 157:—

``John Pates Printer to thee Corteous Reader, I am too craue thy pacience and paynes (good reader) in bearing wyth such faultes as haue escapte in printing: and in correcting as wel such as are layd downe heere too thy view, as all oother whereat thou shalt hap too stumble in perusing this treatise. Thee nooueltye of imprinting English in theese partes and thee absence of the author from perusing soome proofes could not choose but breede errours.''

Certainly Scot, Gascoigne, and Stanyhurst did not correct the proofs, but it would not have been necessary to make an excuse if the practice was not a pretty general one among authors.

Bishop Babington's Exposition of the Lord's Prayer (1588) contains an excuse for the author's inability to correct the press:—

``If thou findest any other faultes either in words or distinctions troubling a perfect sence (Gentle Reader) helpe them by thine owne judgement and excuse the presse by the Authors absence, who best was acquainted to reade his owne hande.''

In the Bobleian Library is preserved the printer's copy of Book V. of Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity (1597), with Whitgift's signature and corrections in Hooker's handwriting. On one of the pages is the following note by the printer:—

``Good Mr. Hooker, I pray you be so good as to send us the next leaf that followeth this, for I know not by what mischance this of ours is lost, which standeth uppon the finishing of the book.''[7]

[7] Notes and Queries, 7th Series, viii. 73.

Another proof of the general practice will be found in N. Breton's The Wit of Wit (1599):—

``What faultes are escaped in the printing, finde by discretion, and excuse the Author by other worke that let him from attendance to the Presse; non h<a!> che non s<a!>. N. B. Gent.''

At the end of Nash's dedication ``To his Readers,'' Lenten Stuffe (1599), is this interesting statement: ``Apply it for me for I am called away to correct the faults of the press, that escaped in my absence from the printing house.''

Richard Brathwaite, when publishing his Strappado for the Divell (1615), made an excuse for not having seen all the proofs. The whole note is well worthy of reproduction:—

``Upon the Errata.

``Gentlemen (humanum est errare), to confirme which position, this my booke (as many other are) hath his share of errors; so as I run ad pr<ae>lum tanquam ad pr<ae>lium, in typos quasi in scippos; but my comfort is if I be strappadoed by the multiplicite of my errors, it is but answerable to my title: so as I may seem to diuine by my style, what I was to indure by the presse. Yet know judicious disposed gentlemen, that the intricacie of the copie, and the absence of the author from many important proofes were occasion of these errors, which defects (if they bee supplied by your generous convenience and curtuous disposition) I doe vowe to satisfie your affectionate care with a more serious surueigh in my next impression. . . . For other errors as the misplacing of commaes, colons, and periods (which as they are in euerie page obvious, so many times they invert the sence), I referre to your discretion (judicious gentle-men) whose lenity may sooner supply them, then all my industry can portray them.''

In The Mastive, or Young Whelpe of the Olde Dogge, Epigrams and Satyres (1615), an anonymous work of Henry Peacham, we read:—

``The faultes escaped in the Printing (or any other omission) are to be excused by reason of the authors absence from the Presse, who thereto should have given more due instructions.''

Dr. Brinsley Nicholson brought forward two very interesting passages on the correcting of proofs from old plays. The first, which looks very like an allusion to the custom, is from the 1601 edition of Ben Jonson's Every Man in his Humour (act. ii., sc. 3), where Lorenzo, junior, says, ``My father had the proving of your copy, some houre before I saw it.'' The second is from Fletcher's The Nice Valour (1624 or 1625), act. iv., sc. 1. Lapet says to his servant (the clown Goloshio), ``So bring me the last proof, this is corrected''; and Goloshio having gone and returned, the following ensues:—

     Lap. What says my Printer now?
     Clown. Here's your last Proof, Sir.
               You shall have perfect Books now in a twinkling.[8]

[8]2 Notes and Queries, 7th Series, viii. 253.

The following address, which contains a curious excuse of Dr. Daniel Featley for not having corrected the proofs of his book The Romish Fisher Caught in his own Net (1624), is very much to the point:—

``I entreat the courteous reader to understand that the greater part of the book was printed in the time of the great frost; when by reason that the Thames was shut up, I could not conveniently procure the proofs to be brought unto mee, before they were wrought off; whereupon it fell out that many very grosse escapes passed the press, and (which was the worst fault of all) the third part is left unpaged.''

As a later example we may cite from Sir Peter Leycester's Historical Antiquities (1673), where we find this note: ``Reader, By reason of the author's absence, several faults have escaped the press: those which are the most material thou art desir'd to amend, and to pardon them all.''

Printed mistakes are usually considered by the sufferers matters of somewhat serious importance; and we picture to ourselves an author stalking up and down his room and tearing his hair when he first discovers them; but Benserade, the French poet, was able to make a joke of the subject. This is the rondeau which he placed at the end of his version of Les Metamorphoses d'Ovide:—

``Pour moi, parmi des fautes innombrables,
 Je n'en connais que deux consid<e'>rables,
 Et dont je fais ma d<e'>claration,
 C'est l'entreprise et l'ex<e'>cution;
 A mon avis fautes irr<e'>parables
 Dans ce volume.''

According to the Scaligerana, Cardan's treatise De Subtilitate, printed by Vascosan in 1557, does not contain a single misprint; but, on the whole, it may be very seriously doubted whether an immaculate edition of any work ever issued from the press. The story is well known of the serious attempt made by the celebrated Glasgow printers Foulis to free their edition of Horace from any chance of error. They caused the proof-sheets after revision to be hung up at the gate of the University, with the offer of a reward to any one who discovered a misprint. In spite of all this care there are, according to Dibdin, six uncorrected errors in this edition.

According to Isaac Disraeli, the goal of freedom from blunders was nearly reached by Dom Joze Souza, with the assistance of Didot in 1817, when he published his magnificent edition of As Lusiadas of Camoens. However, an uncorrected error was discovered in some copies, occasioned by the misplacing of one of the letters in the word Lusitano. A like case occurred a few years ago at an eminent London printer's. A certain book was about to be printed, and instructions were issued that special care was to be taken with the printing. It was read over by the chief reader, and all seemed to have gone well, when a mistake was discovered upon the title-page.

It may be mentioned here, with respect to tables of errata, that they are frequently neglected in subsequent books. There are many books in which the same blunders have been repeated in various editions, although they had been pointed out in an early issue.

CHAPTER VI.

MISPRINTS.

OF all literary blunders misprints are the most numerous, and no one who is conversant with the inside of a printing-office will be surprised at this; in fact, he is more likely to be struck with the freedom from error of the innumerable productions issued from the press than to be surprised at the blunders which he may come across. The possibilities of error are endless, and a frequent cause is to be found in the final correction, when a line may easily get transposed. On this account many authors will prefer to leave a trivial error, such as a wrong stop, in a final revise rather than risk the possibilities of blundering caused by the unlocking of the type. Of course a large number of misprints are far from amusing, while a sense of fun will sometimes be obtained by a trifling transposition of letters. Authors must be on the alert for misprints, although ordinary misspellings should not be left for them by the printer's reader; but they are usually too intent on the structure of their own sentences to notice these misprints. The curious point is that a misprint which has passed through proof and revise unnoticed by reader and author will often be detected immediately the perfected book is placed in the author's hands. The blunder which has hitherto remained hidden appears to start out from the page, to the author's great disgust. One reason why misprints are overlooked is that every word is a sort of pictorial object to the eye. We do not spell the word, but we guess what it is by the first and last letters and its length, so that a wrong letter in the body of the word is easily overlooked.

It is an important help to the editor of a corrupt text to know what misprints are the most probable, and for this purpose the late Mr. Halliwell Phillipps printed for private circulation A Dictionary of Misprints, found in printed books of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, compiled for the use of verbal critics and especially for those who are engaged in editing the works of Shakespeare and our other early Dramatists (1887). In the note at the end of this book Mr. Phillipps writes: ``The readiest access to those evidences will be found in the old errata, and it will be seen, on an examination of the latter, that misprints are abundant in final and initial letters, in omissions, in numerals, and in verbal transpositions; but unquestionably the most frequent in pronouns, articles, conjunctions, and prepositions. When we come to words outside the four latter, there is a large proportion of examples that are either of rare occurrence or unique. Some of the blunders that are recorded are sufficiently grotesque: e.g., Ile starte thence poore for Ile starve their poore,—he formaketh what for the fire maketh hot. It must, indeed, be confessed that the conjectural emendator, if he dispenses with the quasi-authority of contemporary precedents, has an all but unlimited range for the exercise of his ingenuity, the unsettled spellings of our ancestors rendering almost any emendation, however extravagant, a typographical possibility. A large number of their misprints could only have been perpetrated in the midst of the old orthographies. Under no other conditions could ice have been converted into ye, air into time, home into honey, attain into at any, sun into sinner, stone into story, deem into deny, dire into dry, the old spellings of the italicised words being respectively, yce, yee, ayre, tyme, home, honie, attaine, att anie, sunne, sinner, stone, storie, deeme, denie, dire, drie. The form of the long s should also be sometimes taken into consideration, for it could only have been owing to its use that such a word as some could have been misprinted four, niece for wife, prefer for preserve, find for fifth, the variant old spellings being foure, neese, preferre.''

Among the instances of misprints given in this Dictionary may be noticed the following: actions for axioms, agreement for argument, all-eyes for allies, aloud for allowed, banish'd for ravish'd, cancel for cantel, candle for caudle, culsedness for ourselves, eye-sores for oysters, felicity for facility, Hector for nectar, intending for indenting, John for Jehu, Judges for Indies, scene for seene, sixteen for sexton, and for sixty-one, tops for toy, Venus for Venice.

In connection with this work may be mentioned the late Mr. W. Blades's Shakspere and Typography, being an attempt to show Shakspere's personal connection with, and technical knowledge of the Art of Printing, also Remarks upon some common typographical errors with especial reference to the text of Shakspere (1872), a small work of very great interest and value. Mr. Blades writes: ``Now these typographical blunders will, in the majority of cases, be found to fall into one of three classes, viz.:—

``Errors of the ear;

``Errors of the eye; and

``Errors from what, in printers' language, is called `a foul case.'

``I. Errors of the Ear.—Every compositor when at work reads over a few words of his copy, and retains them in his mind until his fingers have picked up the various types belonging to them. While the memory is thus repeating to itself a phrase, it is by no means unnatural, nor in practice is it uncommon, for some word or words to become unwittingly supplanted in the mind by others which are similar in sound. It was simply a mental transposition of syllables that made the actor exclaim,—

`My Lord, stand back and let the parson cough '

instead of

`My Lord, stand back and let the coffin pass' Richard III., i. 2.

And, by a slight confusion of sound, the word mistake might appear in type as must take:—

`So you mistake your husbands.'
Hamlet, iii. 2.

Again, idle votarist would easily become idol votarist—

`I am no idle votarist.'—Timon, iv. 3;

and long delays become transformed to longer days—

`This done, see that you take no long delays.
Titus, iv. 2.

From the time of Gutenberg until now this similarity of sound has been a fruitful source of error among printers.

``II. Errors of the Eye.—The eye often misleads the hand of the compositor, especially if he be at work upon a crabbed manuscript or worn-out reprint. Take out a dot, and This time goes manly becomes

`This tune goes manly.' Macbeth, iv. 3.

So a clogged letter turns What beast was't then? into What boast was't then?—

     `Lady M. What beast was't then,
     That made you break this enterprise to me?'
                                   Macbeth, i. 7.

Examples might be indefinitely multiplied from many an old book, so I will quote but one more instance. The word preserve spelt with a long s might without much carelessness be misread preferre (I Henry VI., iii. 2), and thus entirely alter the sense.

``III. Errors from a `foul case.'—This class of errors is of an entirely different kind from the two former. They came from within the man, and were from the brain; this is from without, mechanical in its origin as well as in its commission. As many readers may never have seen the inside of a printing office, the following short explanation may be found useful: A `case' is a shallow wooden drawer, divided into numerous square receptacles called `boxes,' and into each box is put one sort of letter only, say all a's, or b's, or c's. The compositor works with two of these cases slanting up in front of him, and when, from a shake, a slip, or any other accident, the letters become misplaced the result is technically known as `a foul case.' A further result is, that the fingers of the workman, although going to the proper box, will often pick up a wrong letter, he being entirely unconscious the while of the fact.

``Now, if we can discover any law which governs this abnormal position of the types —if, for instance, we can predicate that the letter o, when away from its own, will be more frequently found in the box appropriated to letter a than any other; that b has a general tendency to visit the l box, and l the v box; and that d, if away from home, will be almost certainly found among the n's; if we can show this, we shall then lay a good foundation for the re-examination of many corrupt or disputed readings in the text of Shakspere, some of which may receive fresh life from such a treatment.

``To start with, let us obtain a definite idea of the arrangement of the types in both `upper' and `lower' case in the time of Shakspere—a time when long s's, with the logotypes ct, ff, fi, ffi, ffl, sb, sh, si, sl, ss, ssi, ssl, and others, were in daily use.''

Mr. Blades then refers to Moxon's Mechanical Exercises, 1683, which contains a representation of the compositors' cases in the seventeenth century, which may be presumed to be the same in form as those used in Shakespeare's day. Various alterations have been made in the arrangement of the cases, with the object of placing the letters more conveniently. The present form is shown on pp. 110, 111.

Mr. Blades proceeds: ``The chief cause of a `foul' case was the same in Shakspere's time as now; and no one interested in the subject should omit visiting a printing office, where he could personally inspect the operation. Suppose a compositor at work `distributing'; the upper and lower cases, one above the other, slant at a considerable angle towards him, and as the types fall quickly from his fingers they form conical heaps in their respective boxes, spreading out in a manner very similar to the sand in the lower half of an hour-glass. Now, if the compositor allows his case to become too full, the topmost letters in each box will certainly slide down into the box below, and occasionally, though rarely, into one of the side boxes. When such letters escape notice, they necessarily cause erroneous spelling, and sometimes entirely change the whole meaning of a sentence. But now comes the important question: Are errors of this kind ever discovered, and especially do they occur in Shakspere? Doubtless they do, but to what extent a long and careful examination alone can

<Table>
 UPPER CASE.
<a'> <e'> <i'> <o'> <u'> <SE> <DDag> A B C D E F G
<a!> <e!> <i!> <o!> <u!> <||> <Dag> H I K L M N O
<a^> <e^> <i^> <o^> <u^> <?> <*> P Q R S T V W
 X Y Z <AE> <OE> U J X Y Z <AE> <OE> U J
<a:> <e:> <i:> <o:> <u:> <c,> <Pd> A B C D E F G
 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 H I K L M N O
 8 9 0 <1/4> <1/2> <3/4> k P Q R S T V W

LOWER CASE.
& [ ] <ae> <oe> j ' Thin and ( ) ? ! ; Leaders. fl
 middling spaces.
— e Leaders. ff
 b c d i s f g
ffl Leaders. fi
ffi En Em
 l m n h o y p , w quads. quads.
Hair
spaces.
z q :
 v u t thick spaces a r Large quods.
x . <.>
<EndTable>

show. As examples merely, and to show the possible change in sense made by a single wrong letter, I will quote one or two instances:—

     `Were they not forc'd with those that should be ours,
      We might have met them darefull, beard to beard.'
                                   Macbeth, v. 5.[9]

[9] Collier's MS. corrector substituted farc'd for forc'd.

The word forced should be read farced, the letter o having evidently dropped down into a box. The enemy's ranks were not forced with Macbeth's followers, but farced or filled up. In Murrell's Cookery, 1632, this identical word is used several times; we there see that a farced leg of mutton was when the meat was all taken out of the skin, mixed with herbs, etc., and then the skin filled up again.

     `I come to thee for charitable license . . .
      To booke our dead.'
                                   Henry V., iv. 7.

So all the copies, but `to book' is surely a modern commercial phrase, and the Herald here asked leave simply to `look,' or to examine, the dead for the purpose of giving honourable burial to their men of rank. In the same sense Sir W. Lucie, in the First Part of Henry VI., says:—

`I come to know what prisoners thou hast tane,
And to survey the bodies of the dead.'

We cannot imagine an officer with pen, inkhorn, and paper, at a period when few could write, `booking' the dead. We may, I think, take it for granted that here the letter b had fallen over into the l box.''

Another point to bear in mind is the existence of such logotypes as fi, si, etc., so that, as Mr. Blades says, ``the change of light into sight must not be considered as a question of a single letter—of s in the l box,'' because the box containing si is far away from the l box, and their contents could not well get mixed.

To these instances given by Mr. Blades may be added a very interesting correction suggested to the author some years ago by a Shakespearian student. When Isabella visits her brother in prison, the cowardly Claudio breaks forth in complaint, and paints a vivid picture of the horrors of the damned:—

``Ay, but to die, and go we know not where;
   To lie in cold obstruction, and to rot;
   This sensible warm motion to become
   A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit
   To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside
   In thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice;
   To be imprisoned in the viewless winds,
   And blown with restless violence round about
   The pendent world; or to be worse than worst
   Of those that lawless and incertain thoughts
   Imagine howling!—'tis too horrible!
   The weariest and most loathed worldly life
   That age, ache, penury, and imprisonment
   Can lay on nature, is a paradise
   To what we fear of death.''
               Measure for Measure, act iii., sc. 1.

We have here, in the expression ``delighted spirit,'' a difficulty which none of the commentators have as yet been able to explain. Warburton said that the adjective meant ``accustomed to ease and delights,'' but this was not a very successful guess, although Steevens adopted it. Sir Thomas Hanmer altered delighted to dilated, and Dr. Johnson mentions two suggested emendations, one being benighted and the other delinquent. None of these suggestions can be corroborated by a reference to the plans of the printers' cases, but it will be seen that the one now proposed is much strengthened by the position of the boxes in those plans. The suggested word is deleted, which accurately describes the spirits as destroyed, or blotted out of existence. The word is common in the printing office, and it was often used in literature.

If we think only of the recognised spelling of the word delighted we shall find that there are three letters to alter, but if we take the older spelling, delited, the change is very easily made, for it will be noticed that the letters in the i box might easily tumble over into the e box.

There is a very curious description of hell in Bede's Ecclesiastical History, where the author speaks of ``deformed spirits'' who leap from excess of heat to cutting cold, and it is not improbable that Shakespeare may have had this passage in his mind when he put these words into the mouth of Claudio.[10]

[10] An article on this point will be found in The Antiquary, vol. viii. (1883), p. 200.

It is taken for granted that the compositor is not likely to put his hand into the wrong box, so that if a wrong letter is used, it must have fallen out of its place.

An important class of misprints owes its origin to this misplacement; but, as noticed by Mr. Blades, there are other classes, such as misspellings caused by the compositor's ignorance or misunderstanding. We must remember that the printer has to work fast, and if he does not recognise a word he is very likely to turn it into something he does understand. Thus the title of a paper in the Philosophical Transactions was curiously changed in an advertisement, and the Calamites, a species of fossil plants of the coal measures, with but slight change appeared as ``The True Fructification of Calamities.'' This is a blunder pretty sure to be made, and within a few days of writing this, the author has seen a reference to ``Notes on some Pennsylvanian Calamities.'' As an instance of less excusable ignorance, we shall often find the word gauge printed as guage.

One of the slightest of misprints was the cause of an odd query in the second series of Notes and Queries, which, by the way, has never yet been answered. In John Hall's Hor<ae> Vaciv<ae> (1646) there is this passage, alluding to the table game called tick-tack. The author wrote: ``Tick tack sets a man's intentions on their guard. Errors in this and war can be but once amended''; but the printer joined the two words ``and war'' into one, and this puzzled the correspondent of the Notes and Queries (v. 272). He asked: ``Who can quote another passage from any author containing this word? I have hunted after it in many dictionaries without avail. It means, I suppose, antagonism or contest, and resembles in form many Anglo-Saxon words which never found their way into English proper.'' The blunder was not discovered, and another correspondent wrote: ``The word andwar would surely modernise into hand-war. Is not andirons (handirons) a parallel word of the same genus?' In the General Index we find ``Andwar, an old English word.'' So much for the long life of a very small blunder.

A very similar blunder to this of ``andwar'' occurs in Select Remains of the learned John Ray with his Life by the late William Derham, which was published in 1760 with a dedication to the Earl of Macclesfield, President of the Royal Society, signed by George Scott. In Derham's Life of Ray a list of books read by Ray in 1667 is printed from a letter to Dr. Lister, and one of these is printed ``The Business about great Rakes.'' Mr. Scott must have been puzzled with this title; but he was evidently a man not to be daunted by a difficulty, for he added a note to this effect: ``They are now come into general use among the farmers, and are called drag rakes.'' Who would suspect after this that the title is merely a misprint, and that the pamphlet refers to the proceedings of Valentine Greatrakes, the famous stroker, who claimed equal power with the kings and queens of England in curing the king's evil? This blunder will be found uncorrected in Dr. Lankester's Memorials of John Ray, published by the Ray Society in 1846, and does not seem to have been suspected until the Rev. Richard Hooper called attention to it a short time ago in Notes and Queries.[11]

[11] Seventh Series, iv. 225.

An amusing instance of the invention of a new word was afforded when the printer produced the words ``a noticeable fact in thisms'' instead of ``this MS.''

The misplacement of a stop, or the transposition of a letter, or the dropping out of one, will make sad havoc of the sense of a passage, as when we read of the immoral works of Milton. It was, however, a very complimentary misprint by which it was made to appear that a certain town had a remarkably high rate of morality. In the address to Dr. Watts by J. Standen prefixed to that author's Hor<ae> Lyric<ae> (Leeds, 1788) this same misprint occurs, to the serious confusion of Mr. Standen's meaning,— ``With thought sublime And high sonorous words, thou sweetly sing'st To thy immoral lyre.''

On another page of this same book Watts' ``daring flight'' is transposed to darling flight.

In Miss Yonge's Dynevor Terrace a portion of one word was joined on to another with the awkward result that a young lady is described ``without stretched arms.''

The odd results of the misplacement of stops must be familiar to most readers; but it is not often that they are so serious as in the following instances. William Sharp, the celebrated line engraver, believed in the Divine mission of the madman Richard Brothers, and engraved a portrait of that worthy with the following inscription beneath it: ``Fully believing this to be the man appointed by God, I engrave his likeness.—W. SHARP.'' The writing engraver by mistake put the comma after the word appointed, and omitted it at the latter part of the sentence, thus giving a ludicrous effect to the whole inscription. Many impressions were struck off before the mistake was discovered and rectified. The question of an apostrophe was the ground of a civil action a few years ago in Switzerland; and although the anecdote refers to a manuscript, and not to a printed document, it is inserted here because it illustrates the subject. A gentleman left a will which ended thus: ``Et pour t<e'>moigner <a!> mes neveux Charles et Henri de M—— toute mon affection je l<e!>gue <a!> chacun d'eux cent mille francs.'' The paper upon which the will was written was folded up before the ink was dry, and therefore many of the letters were blotted. The legatees asserted that the apostrophe was a blot, and therefore claimed two instead of one hundred thousand francs each.

Several misprints are always recurring, such as the mixture of the words Topography and Typography, and Biography with Bibliography. In the prospectus of an edition of the Waverley Novels we read: ``The aim of the publishers has been to make it pre-eminent, by beauty of topography and illustration, as an <e'>dition de luxe.''

Andrew Marvell published a book which he entitled The Rehearsal Transprosed; but it is seldom that a printer can be induced to print the title otherwise than as The Rehearsal Transposed.

It must be conceded in favour of printers that some authors do write an execrable hand. One sometimes receives a letter which requires about three readings before it can be understood. At the first time of reading the meaning is scarcely intelligible, at the second time some faint glimpse of the writer's object in writing is obtained, and at the third time the main point of the letter is deciphered. Such men may be deemed to be the plague of printers. A friend of Beloe ``the Sexagenarian'' was remonstrated with by a printer for being the cause of a large amount of swearing in his office. ``Sir,'' exclaimed Mr. A., ``the moment `copy' from you is divided among the compositors, volley succeeds volley as rapidly and as loudly as in one of Lord Nelson's victories.''

There is a popular notion among authors that it is not wise to write a clear hand; and M<e'>nage was one of the first to express it. He wrote: ``If you desire that no mistakes shall appear in the works which you publish, never send well-written copy to the printer, for in that case the manuscript is given to young apprentices, who make a thousand errors; while, on the other hand, that which is difficult to read is dealt with by the master-printers.'' It is also related that the late eminent Arabic scholar, Mr. E. W. Lane, who wrote a particularly good hand, asked his printer how it was that there were always so many errors in his proofs. He was answered that such clear writing was always given to the boys, as experienced compositors could not be spared for it. The late Dean Hook held to this opinion, for when he was asked to allow a sermon to be copied out neatly for the press, he answered that if it were to be printed he would prefer to write it out himself as badly as he could. This practice, if it ever existed, we are told by experienced printers does not exist now.

It must, one would think, have been the badness of the ``copy'' that induced the compositors to turn ``the nature and theory of the Greek verb'' into the native theology of the Greek verb; ``the conservation of energy'' into the conversation of energy; and the ``Forest Conservancy Branch'' into the Forest Conservatory Branch.

Some printers go out of their way to make blunders when they are unable to understand their ``copy.'' Thus, in the Times, some years ago, among the contributors to the Garibaldi Fund was a bookbinder who gave five shillings. The next down in the list was one ``A. Lega Fletcher,'' a name which was printed as A Ledger stitcher.

Some very extraordinary blunders have been made by the ignorant misreading of an author's contractions. It is said that in a certain paper which was sent to be printed the words Indian Government were contracted as Indian Govt. This one compositor set up throughout his turn as Indian goat. A writer in one of the Reviews wrote the words ``J. C. first invaded Britain,'' and a worthy compositor, who made it his business to fill up all the abbreviations, printed this as Jesus Christ instead of Julius C<ae>sar.

Here it may be remarked that some of the most extraordinary misprints never get farther than the printing office or the study; but although they may have been discovered by the reader or the author, they were made nevertheless.

Sometimes the fun of a misprint consists in its elaborateness and completeness, and sometimes in its simplicity (perhaps only the change of a letter). Of the first class the transformation of Shirley's well-known lines is a good example:—

``Only the actions of the just
Smell sweet and blossom in the dust.''

is scarcely recognisable as

``All the low actions of the just
Swell out and blow Sam in the dust.''

The statement that ``men should work and play Loo,'' obtained from ``men should work and play too,'' illustrates the second class.

The version of Pope which was quoted by a correspondent of the Times about a year ago is very charming:—

``A little learning is a dangerous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the aperient spring.'

The reporter or printer who mistook the Oxford professor's allusion to the Eumenides, and quoted him as speaking of ``those terrible old Greek goddesses—the Humanities,'' was still more elaborate in his joke.

Horace Greeley is well known to have been an exceedingly bad writer; but when he quoted the well-known line (which is said to be equal to a florin, because there are four tizzies in it)—

`` 'Tis true, 'tis pity, pity 'tis 'tis true,''

one might have expected the compositor to recognise the quotation, instead of printing the astonishing calculation—

`` 'Tis two, 'tis fifty and fifty 'tis, 'tis five.''

This is as bad as the blunder of the printer of the Hampshire paper who is said to have announced that Sir Robert Peel and a party of fiends were engaged shooting peasants at Drayton Manor.

It is perhaps scarcely fair to quote too many blunders from newspapers, which must often be hurriedly compiled, but naturally they furnish the richest crop. The point of a leader in an American paper was lost by a misprint, which reads as follows: ``We do battle without shot or charge for the cause of the right.'' This would be a very ineffectual battle, and the proper words were without stint or change.

A writer on Holland in one of the magazines quoted Samuel Butler's well- known lines—

     ``A country that draws fifty foot of water,
     . . . . . . .
     In which they do not live, but go aboard,''

which the printer transformed into

``In which they do not live, but cows abound.''

It is of course easy to invent misprints, and therefore one feels a little doubtful sometimes with respect to those which are quoted without chapter and verse.

One of the most remarkable blunders ever made in a newspaper was connected with the burial of the well-known literary man, John Payne Collier. In the Standard of Sept. 21st, 1883, it was reported that ``the remains of the late Mr. John Payne Collier were interred yesterday in Bray Churchyard, near Maidenhead, in the presence of a large number of spectators.'' The paragraph maker of the Eastern Daily Press had never heard of Payne Collier, so he thought the last name should be printed with a small C, and wanting a heading for his paragraph he invented one straight off, and this is what appeared in that paper:—

``The Bray Colliery Disaster. The remains of the late John Payne, collier, were interred yesterday afternoon in the Bray Churchyard, in the presence of a large number of friends and spectators.''