56 ERRATA RECEPTA. 



scribes : " Page 194, last line, read ffreenffrasses and not ffreen grapes^' 

 In the preparation of copy for the press, observe what care should be 

 taken in the execution of a double s. A not unfrequent erratum of 

 " Capitol " for " capital " is peculiar to the United States^ The name 

 of the national State House at Washington has confused certain 

 writers and printers. In one of the less-distinguished United States' 

 newspapers, I not long since noticed a reference to our own venerable 

 town of Niagara as " the ancient capitol of Upper Canada." 



If not narrowly watched, geographical names, ancient and modern, 

 are liable to some singular metamorphoses in the process of printing. 

 In my old copy of the QeograpMa of Pionysius Periegetes, the edi- 

 tor, "Edw. "Wells, A.M., vEdis Christi Alumn," inserts at the close 

 of his preface the general deprecation : " Orandum restat ut quae in 

 hoc Libro passim occurrant sphalmata (sive currente prelo serius 

 deprehensa, sive aliunde orta) ea lector candidus facile condonarit." 

 In a brochure of less than 130 pages, spJialmata passim! in the 

 second edition too, and " e Theatro Sheldoniano." This was in 1709. 

 According to Mr. Burton, who narrates the story in his " Book- 

 hunter," — in the work of a scrupulously accurate writer, an assertion 

 appears which, could it be substantiated, would be of some interest 

 to ourselves : it is to the effect that, on a particular occasion Theo- 

 dore Beza went to sea in a Canadian vessel. This- statement, if true, 

 would tend to show that at the close of the 16th century the ship- 

 building interest of Canada was already a thing in esse. Unfortu- 

 nately, however, for the reputation of the early enterprise of our 

 country, it was afterwards explained that an officious corrector had, 

 . without any authority, been interpolating an a. It was in a Candian 

 vessel that the embarkation of Beza had taken place. — By a blunder 

 of the press another name with which we have some concern, occa- 

 sionally comes quite unexpectedly into view. In my copy of Carl 

 Hitter's Comparative Greography (p. 102), I am startled when I read 

 that " the Caucasus may be regarded as the circumvallation of the 

 American plateau." Of course Armenian is intended to be said. 

 On the other hand, in Locrine, a play attributed to Shakspeare, in 



the lines 



"A gift more rich than are the ■wealtby mines 

 Found in the bowels of America" — 



supposed to be uttered before the Christian Era, an effort has been 

 made to do away wij;h the anachronism by imagining a misprint for 



