ERRATA RECEPTA. 53 



ting it in the crucible of the press. It is, at once, subjected to the 

 scrutiny of a thousand minds ; and the blemish overlooked in one 

 generation is removed in the next ; until, at last, it is brought back to 

 something like its pristine integrity. 



It would not be difficult to trace, through successive editions of 

 standard Greek and Latin authors, strange misconceptions of sense, 

 until the destined critic appeared ; who, by the change of a letter, or 

 reconstruction of a syllable, made the truth of the passage self-evi- 

 dently to flash forth. One instance, a sample of many, must suffice. 

 Up to the time of Dindorf, the text of Pausanias {Travels, x. 12.) 

 represented the Sibyl, Herophile the younger, as saying that her mo- 

 ther was a goddess, but that her father was an " eater of whales 1 " 



Et/x,i 8' eyo) yeyama jx4(tov Ovrjrov re ^eas re, 

 N-u/At^T^S aOavdrrj's, Trarpos Se KrjTorjjdyoLO, 



Learned scholia, on the place, assured the reader that several pro- 

 found meanings were implied. By a very simple correction, Dindorf 

 transformed the portentous epithet, cetophagus, into the very mode- 

 rate and reasonable one of sitophagus, " eater of bread," a common 

 poetic expression for a mortal man. In Schubart's edition (Leips., 

 1854.), Dindorf's emendation is incorporated in the text (Trarpo? B' Ik 

 a-LTocf>dyoLo) . — In a similar manner, long-misunderstood inscriptions on 

 coins sometimes receive a sudden clearing-up by the insertion of a let- 

 ter, or the addition of a stroke. On the reverse of a coin of Carau- 

 sius, the word ORIVNA was, for a time, a crux to numismatists. It 

 was held, by some, to be the name of an otherwise unchronicled em- 

 press of British descent, the word including a Welsh element. By 

 others, it was shewn to denote a certain deified heroine, the female 

 correlative of Orion. — A matter-of-fact observer, however, by replac- 

 ing an F at the beginning of the word, and a slight transverse line on 

 the top of the supposed I, both of which had been worn away in the 

 lapse of time, proved the disputed term to be simply FORTVNA, a 

 name very common on the coins of emperors. 



But, details of this kind not being readily intelligible ; nor, per- 

 haps, very generally interesting ; I shall confine myself, now, during 

 the remainder of the paper, to the notes which I have happened to 

 make of verbal errors that have insinuated themselves into our litera- 

 ture, and common speech, mainly through a faulty typography. 



The misprints of the class to be described produce, of course, a 



