Year: 1871

THERE are readers who are never hap
pier, as mere readers, than when they
light upon typographical error in their
favorite author or journal. No beauty in
the blemished page give quite so much of
certain kind of satisfaction as the blemish
itself, for that enables the reader to rise
for the moment superior to the writer,
however learned, brilliant, or graceful he
may be. The reader seems to have the i'm
preston, more or less vague, that he is
himself an exceedingly clever fellow, and
straightwsy sends note to the editor
pointing out the glaring error that occurred
in his last issue. Every journalist knows
this kind of note, and has dropped hun
dreds of such missives, half read, into his
waste-paper basket, for it is only people
unfamiliar with types who think it worth
the while to make an ado about an inver-
ted letter or a misplaced comma. Typo
graphical accuracy is impossible even in
works slowly and carefully prepared; it is
unreasonable to demand it in newspaper,
the writing and printing of which are
necessarily done in haste. The wonder is
that there are so few mistakes Let the
reader reflect for moment that every let
ter on this page is produced by separate
piece of metal so small that only the most
skilful fingers can handle it dexterously.
The slightest displacement of one of these
slender strips of lead would inevitably
cause blunder. How easy it is to drop a
type, or misplace it, or dent it, Even
after the proof-reader has corrected his
proof-sheet all these chances and hun
dred others are possible. In correcting
one error in the types it is the commonest
accident for the compositor to disarrange
word in another part of the text Then
proof readers are mortal. There is moth
ing easier in this world-lying not ex-
cepted-than not to see a misprint until it
is too late to amend it, and then the blunder
that escaped the keenest eye always
has the faculty of becoming the
most prominent thing on the page.
An author or proof-reader may re-
wise and revise and at the end find that he
has overlooked some obvious flaw. This
is true of books as well as newspapers.
There has never yet been produced a
volume, of any considerable size, free from
| typographical blemishes. Famous print
ers have attempted again and again to pro-
duce such work The nearest approach
to success was that of SouZa Botelho, who
edited in 1917 superb edition of "Os
| Lucidas" of CamOens. This amateur, as
DAoAoCA eSA1o ho1
gality of cost and labor, and flattered him.
self that, by the assistance of Didot, not a
single typographical error should mar that
] splendid volume. But after the work was
off the press, an error was discovered in
some of the copies occasioned by one OF
the letters in the word "Lusitano" having
got misplaced during the process of print.
ing.


Errata have been the bane of writer:
and printers ever since the art of printing
was introduced. Oddly enough, these
very freaks of the types which so wiring
the hearts of printers, have sometimes lent
to their books value that they would moi
have had otherwise. The other day in
London book was sold for more thar
forty times the original cost of the volume
simply because it contained a ludioroui
misprint. r it.te-


A list of notable modern errata would
make as entertaining chapter as any In
I nicro ali,c fOt1r yOluu1ac Of a. Curincifias ~