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
<p 79>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
<p 80>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
<p 81>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,<p 82>
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.''
<p 83>
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<p 84>
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
ac<p 85>knowledge 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
<p 86>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
<p 87>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
<p 88>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
<p 89>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
<p 90>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
<p 91>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),
<p 92>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
<p 93>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
<p 94>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
<p 95>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
<p 96>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
<p 97>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
<p 98>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
<p 99>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.