54 ERRATA RECEPTA. 



certain sense, and so by the negligent maj, in some instances, be 

 passed over without detection. Some errors of this kind run through- 

 out an edition, and after misleading for a few years are discovered 

 and corrected. Others are longer-lived — so long-lived that they 

 acquire a prescriptive right to their existence and supersede the 

 original and actual expressions of which they are the representatives. 



Before proceeding to these rather enduring typographical inaccu- 

 racies, it may be well to notice one or two of the ephemeral sort, 

 which sometimes startle and perhaps amuse us for a moment, but 

 which are at once set right either mentally or by some simultaneous 

 notification. Some of these will serve to illustrate the mode in which 

 the more enduring faults have arisen. 



Not long since, it is said, a French paper astonished the world of 

 Paris by announcing that a certain well-known savan had lately been 

 devore (devoured) by the Emperor. An unfortunate v had found its 

 way into the box for c's in the compositor's case, and had here been 

 inadvertently selected. The intention was to state that the philoso- 

 pher in question had been decore — had received a " decoration " at 

 the Imperial band. Again : London was recently amazed to learn 

 from one of the daily journals, that a distinguished financier was 

 about to issue a work " On the Monkeys of all Nations." Here, an 

 extra letter had done the mischief. The k should have been struck 

 out. It was a work on the " Moneys of all nations." A telegram 

 in a Montreal paper not many weeks ago, reported from New York 

 that the members of a wide-spread association for the accomplishment 

 of a supposed very important political object, had been notified by 

 circular from the central Board that, " a point had now been attained 

 from which they could see the gaol plainly before them." Here 

 injury to the sense had been occasioned by a transposition of letters. 

 Yorgaol, goal ought to have been printed. In a catalogue of " choice, 

 useful and curious" books, put forth by Mr. J. Eussell Smith, the 

 well-known publisher of Soho Square in London, I lately noticed a 

 certain pamphlet thus entered : "Antimonians — A Declaration against 

 the Antimonians and their Doctrine of Liberty, 4to. 3s. 164i." Ex- 

 tended as the reader's acquaintance with human notion and opinion 

 may be, he will not, perhaps, at once call to mind the Antimonian 

 sub-variety. Are they partisans, he may, perhaps, mentalh'- ask of 

 himself, of the celebrated Valentine, author of the once well-known 

 Currus Triumphalls Antimonii, who experimented with such fatal 



