_Errors in Punctuation_ (Vol. viii., p. 217.).--Every one must agree with
R. H. C. as to the importance of correct punctuation; and it may easily be
supposed how it must puzzle readers of works whose language is in great
part obsolete, to meet with mistakes of this kind, when we find modern
writers frequently rendered almost unintelligible by similar errors. To
take those whose works have, perhaps, been oftener reprinted than any
others of this century, Byron and Scott, the foregoing passage in _Childe
Harold_ is a signal instance; and as another, the Sonnet translated by
Byron from Vittorelli, has only had corrected in the very latest editions,
an error in the punctuation of the first two lines which rendered them a
mystery to those who did not understand the original, as printed on the
opposite page. In note 12 to the 5th Canto of _Marmion_, every edition,
British or foreign, down to the present day, punctuates the last two or
three lines as follows:
"A torquois ring;--probably this fatal gift is, with James's sword and
dagger, preserved in the College of Heralds, London."
Sir Walter is thus made to express a doubt, which he never intended, as to
the ring being there. A comma after "ring," another after "gift," and the
omission of the dash, will restore the true meaning of the sentence.