Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1873-01-08
TIE SCULPTURES.
PrinteTs' Errors fn the English
Bible.

Printers Errors fn the English
Bible.
The errors of the foreign editions Of
the Dutch and Scotch Bibles are almost
innumerable. In II black letter testa-
ment of 1864, printed at either Edin-
burg or in Holland, a mistake may be
met with in nearly every column. In
England itself, vigorous attempt to in
sure correctness was made by the re-
striction of the right of publishing
Bibles to the Kings printers; and no
more curious proof of the perpetuity OF
English usages could be found than in
the history of this monopoly. The
house of Christopher Barker, to which
patent was granted in 1867, went on
steadily printing it until 1903: The
right was held for sixty years by Thomas
Basket, and purchased in 1863 by
Charles Eyre Il Spottiswoode, CON
tinue succession which has been un-
broken since 1868.
But the monopoly failed in securing
various editions from even ludicrous
the prOfane blunders. In one of the
ana 'asnes, the second folio of GIL, in
Garner mistakes of the first were sup
Whicn tne been corrected, we find:
posed 10 nave 'pdss with them unto a
place called Geths " name of the
l7l7 has received /. misnr;nt in the
" Vinegar Bible, from Te VINEYARD,
heading of the parable of u anturv we
In two quartos Of the present c, .errible
are told that the blast of thy /. and
ones is as stone against the wall, re
that the dogs liked his blood. v
may perhaps expect little irony in the
of 1859 (he may have been
an acquaintance of MiIton's) who makes
The heather vex the Israelites, not with
their "wiles," but with their wives, or
IN the printer of l640, who substituted
rulers in the wildernerness for
mules"
But the real mischief of such blunders
ays in their tendency to perpetuation.
The omission in the first folio of two i'm
Dortant words in the fifth chapters OF st.
Johns First Epistle is still perpetuated
n our prayer-books, though it has been
in the text of our Bibles.
Strain at gnat was probably typo
graphical blunder in the first issues Of
King James Bible for the strain out
# the bishops and g Genevan versions;
tut it remains to this day. So a mis-
,rint in the First Ep'istle to Timothy,
which originated at Cambridge about
629, went on uncorrec ted, edition after
edition, till 1903. The fine of f3O00
inflicted by the Star Cha mber on Baxter
or his omission of the prt hibitory not
n the Seventh Command ment is we'll
Jnown instance of the fru itless efforts to
,btain correctness; the G ne, however, as
We hear from Mr.. LJftle, dwindles, on
Investigation to f3Q 0, and this again is
for by the pr esentation OF a
et of Greek types to one OF the unlver-
titles"
Nor was free tr ade more conducive to
correctness than the monopoly. The
,reat rebellion for time threw open
he market, but the popular editions OF
field and Hi were dis6gured by a
.reater humber of blunders than had ap'
Deared before. Their defects are merci-
essly ey posed in rare tract by Mr..
Ielbour ne, which Mr.. Loftie has re-
,rinted in the preface. Besides the
.reate errors, however, which we have
lotic ed, we find an infinite number Of
NAL Ter notifications going on in spell
ng and punctuation. During the first
en tury which is comprised in Mr.. Lof-
ie list, the spelling of no two editions
8 the same. In such change as of
sometimes for "some time" spelling
,e comes an i'm portant organ Of revision.
: We still, says Mr.. Lottie, have such
words as astonied, throughly, .pran-
Ihings, sope,' although the authority
,y which they are retained has no more
existence in reality tn IN that by which
iuch words as shamefastness or I'M
possible were altered"