Besides the ordinary _errata_, which happen in printing a work, others
have been purposely committed, that the _errata_ may contain what is not
permitted to appear in the body of the work. Wherever the Inquisition
had any power, particularly at Rome, it was not allowed to employ the
word _fatum_, or _fata_, in any book. An author, desirous of using the
latter word, adroitly invented this scheme; he had printed in his book
_facta_, and, in the _errata_, he put, "For _facta_, read _fata_."
Scarron has done the same thing on another occasion. He had composed
some verses, at the head of which he placed this dedication--_A
Guillemette, Chienne de ma Soeur_; but having a quarrel with his sister,
he maliciously put into the _errata_, "Instead of _Chienne de ma Soeur_,
read _ma Chienne de Soeur_."
Lully, at the close of a bad prologue said, the word _fin du prologue_
was an _erratum_, it should have been _fi du prologue_!
In a book, there was printed, _le docte Morel_. A wag put into the
_errata_, "For _le docte Morel_, read _le Docteur Morel_." This _Morel_
was not the first _docteur_ not _docte_.
When a fanatic published a mystical work full of unintelligible
raptures, and which he entitled _Les Délices de l'Esprit_, it was
proposed to print in his errata, "For _Délices_ read _Délires_."
The author of an idle and imperfect book ended with the usual phrase of
_cetera desiderantur_, one altered it, _Non desiderantur sed desunt_;
"The rest is _wanting_, but not _wanted_."
At the close of a silly book, the author as usual printed the word
FINIS.--A wit put this among the errata, with this pointed couplet:--
FINIS!--an error, or a lie, my friend!
In writing foolish books--there is _no End_!
In the year 1561 was printed a work, entitled "the Anatomy of the Mass."
It is a thin octavo, of 172 pages, and it is accompanied by an _Errata_
of 15 pages! The editor, a pious monk, informs us that a very serious
reason induced him to undertake this task: for it is, says he, to
forestal the _artifices of Satan_. He supposes that the Devil, to ruin
the fruit of this work, employed two very malicious frauds: the first
before it was printed, by drenching the MS. in a kennel, and having
reduced it to a most pitiable state, rendered several parts illegible:
the second, in obliging the printers to commit such numerous blunders,
never yet equalled in so small a work. To combat this double machination
of Satan he was obliged carefully to re-peruse the work, and to form
this singular list of the blunders of printers under the influence of
Satan. All this he relates in an advertisement prefixed to the _Errata_.
A furious controversy raged between two famous scholars from a very
laughable but accidental _Erratum_, and threatened serious consequences
to one of the parties. Flavigny wrote two letters, criticising rather
freely a polyglot Bible edited by Abraham Ecchellensis. As this learned
editor had sometimes censured the labours of a friend of Flavigny, this
latter applied to him the third and fifth verses of the seventh chapter
of St. Matthew, which he printed in Latin. Ver 3. _Quid vides festucam
in_ OCULO _fratris tui, et trabem in_ OCULO _tuo non vides_? Ver. 5.
_Ejice primùm trabem de_ OCULO _tuo, et tunc videbis ejicere festucam
de_ OCULO _fratris tui_. Ecchellensis opens his reply by accusing
Flavigny of an _enormous crime_ committed in this passage; attempting to
correct the sacred text of the Evangelist, and daring to reject a word,
while he supplied its place by another as _impious_ as _obscene_! This
crime, exaggerated with all the virulence of an angry declaimer, closes
with a dreadful accusation. Flavigny's morals are attacked, and his
reputation overturned by a horrid imputation. Yet all this terrible
reproach is only founded on an _Erratum_! The whole arose from the
printer having negligently suffered the _first letter_ of the word
_Oculo_ to have dropped from the form, when he happened to touch a line
with his finger, which did not stand straight! He published another
letter to do away the imputation of Ecchellensis; but thirty years
afterwards his rage against the negligent printer was not extinguished;
the wits were always reminding him of it.
Of all literary blunders none equalled that of the edition of the
Vulgate, by Sixtus V. His Holiness carefully superintended every sheet
as it passed through the press; and, to the amazement of the world, the
work remained without a rival--it swarmed with errata! A multitude of
scraps were printed to paste over the erroneous passages, in order to
give the true text. The book makes a whimsical appearance with these
patches; and the heretics exulted in this demonstration of papal
infallibility! The copies were called in, and violent attempts made to
suppress it; a few still remain for the raptures of the biblical
collectors; not long ago the bible of Sixtus V. fetched above sixty
guineas--not too much for a mere book of blunders! The world was highly
amused at the bull of the editorial Pope prefixed to the first volume,
which excommunicates all printers who in reprinting the work should make
any _alteration_ in the text!
In the version of the Epistles of St. Paul into the Ethiopic language,
which proved to be full of errors, the editors allege a good-humoured
reason--"They who printed the work could not read, and we could not
print; they helped us, and we helped them, as the blind helps the
blind."
A printer's widow in Germany, while a new edition of the Bible was
printing at her house, one night took an opportunity of stealing into
the office, to alter that sentence of subjection to her husband,
pronounced upon Eve in Genesis, chap. 3, v. 16. She took out the two
first letters of the word HERR, and substituted NA in their place, thus
altering the sentence from "and he shall be thy LORD" (_Herr_), to "and
he shall be thy FOOL" (_Narr_). It is said her life paid for this
intentional erratum; and that some secreted copies of this edition have
been bought up at enormous prices.
We have an edition of the Bible, known by the name of _The Vinegar
Bible_; from the erratum in the title to the 20th chap. of St. Luke, in
which "Parable of the _Vineyard_," is printed, "Parable of the
_Vinegar_." It was printed in 1717, at the Clarendon press.
We have had another, where "Thou shalt commit adultery" was printed,
omitting the negation; which occasioned the archbishop to lay one of the
heaviest penalties on the Company of Stationers that was ever recorded
in the annals of literary history.[37]
Herbert Croft used to complain of the incorrectness of our English
classics, as reprinted by the booksellers. It is evident some stupid
printer often changes a whole text intentionally. The fine description
by Akenside of the Pantheon, "SEVERELY great," not being understood by
the blockhead, was printed _serenely great_. Swift's own edition of "The
City Shower," has "old ACHES throb." _Aches_ is two syllables, but
modern printers, who had lost the right pronunciation, have _aches_ as
one syllable; and then, to complete the metre, have foisted in "aches
_will_ throb." Thus what the poet and the linguist wish to preserve is
altered, and finally lost.[38]
It appears by a calculation made by the printer of Steevens's edition of
Shakspeare, that every octavo page of that work, text and notes,
contains 2680 distinct pieces of metal; which in a sheet amount to
42,880--the misplacing of any one of which would inevitably cause a
blunder! With this curious fact before us, the accurate state of our
printing, in general, is to be admired, and errata ought more freely to
be pardoned than the fastidious minuteness of the insect eye of certain
critics has allowed.
Whether such a miracle as an immaculate edition of a classical author
does exist, I have never learnt; but an attempt has been made to obtain
this glorious singularity--and was as nearly realised as is perhaps
possible in the magnificent edition of _Os Lusiadas_ of Camoens, by Dom
Joze Souza, in 1817. This amateur spared no prodigality of cost and
labour, and flattered himself, that by the assistance of Didot, not a
single typographical error should be found in that splendid volume. But
an error was afterwards discovered in some of the copies, occasioned by
one of the letters in the word _Lusitano_ having got misplaced during
the working of one of the sheets. It must be confessed that this was an
_accident_ or _misfortune_--rather than an _Erratum!_
One of the most remarkable complaints on ERRATA is that of Edw. Leigh,
appended to his curious treatise on "Religion and Learning." It consists
of two folio pages, in a very minute character, and exhibits an
incalculable number of printers' blunders. "We have not," he says,
"Plantin nor Stephens amongst us; and it is no easy task to specify the
chiefest errata; false interpunctions there are too many; here a letter
wanting, there a letter too much; a syllable too much, one letter for
another; words parted where they should be joined; words joined which
should be severed; words misplaced; chronological mistakes," &c. This
unfortunate folio was printed in 1656. Are we to infer, by such frequent
complaints of the authors of that day, that either they did not receive
proofs from the printers, or that the printers never attended to the
corrected proofs? Each single erratum seems to have been felt as a stab
to the literary feelings of the poor author!