ERRATA RECEPTA. 49 



2. Misprints. 



Every one who has had anything to do with getting written mat- 

 •ter transferred to type, knows how hard it is to secure a perfect 

 accuracy. Errors escape the eye of the most vigilant and of the most 

 experienced. Such printers as the Aldi and Stephani, or as the early 

 Elzeviers and Erobenius, being themselves enlightened connoisseurs 

 in the learning of their respective periods, superintended with intel- 

 ligence and affectionate care the sheets that issued from their presses. 

 Their editions are consequently distinguished for a great exemption 

 from faults. As, however, the art of printing came to be more 

 extensively practised, and employed simply as a mechanical means of 

 obtaining a livelihood, errors of the press multiplied exceedingly. 

 While locomotion was difficult and postal transmission slow, infre- 

 quent and expensive, authors seldom revised the proof-sheets of their 

 own works. The corrections were made by readers incompetent for 

 the irksome but all-important task. A notification of errata at the 

 ^beginning or close of every volume was accepted as a thing of course. 



At the present day every facility exists for the securing of accu- 

 racy in typography, so far as the writings of cotemporaries are con,- 

 cerned. But the literary works of preceding generations have not 

 yet been quite cleared of the defects which marred them on their 

 first appearance in type. In the most sumptuous of our modern 

 publications, editors have not entirely succeeded in weeding out, 

 perhaps in every instance, they have not detected, the mistakes of the 

 early printers. 



A further-removed cause, too, of uncertainty in regard to the abso- 

 lute literal accuracy of our present texts of ancient authors must be 

 borne in mind ; namely, the condition of the manuscripts which 

 served as "copy" to the first printers. In works transmitted by 

 writing from age to age, many were the sources of error. Centuries 

 ago, the books of Homer were well known to have undergone inter- 

 polation extensively. The agency that could, on occasion, secure 

 from an Oracle a convenient response, could as easily induce the 

 insertion of an apposite clause in a codex, should the same be wanted. 

 ■Solon himself, we are told, gave a colour to the right of Athens to 

 Salamis by adducing a line, foisted in for the nonce and still continu- 

 ing in the Catalogue of ships in the second book of the Iliad. But 

 •even where no reasons existed for intentional falsification now and 



Vol. XI. D 



